The next morning Anne was summoned to the office; there she was coaxed
and threatened by Miss Morris and questioned keenly by Mademoiselle
Duroc. All to no purpose. She said in breathless whispers that she
didn't mean to be disobedient, she didn't want to refuse to answer, but
she could not, could not tell anything about the jewels. She confessed
that Miss Drayton and Mrs. Patterson did not know that she had them.
"She must answer." Miss Morris's voice was rougher than it had ever been
in Mademoiselle Duroc's presence. "Permit me to whip her, Mademoiselle,
and make her tell."
Mademoiselle shook her head slowly. Her voice was like spun silk as she
replied: "If she does not answer when I speak, it is not my thought that
she would answer to the rod. Anne!" She fixed her clear, commanding
eyes again on the little culprit.
"Oh, Mamzelle, don't ask me," sobbed Anne. "I would tell you if I could.
I will do anything else you want me. But I cannot--cannot--cannot tell."
Mademoiselle Duroc rose, looked over Anne's head as if she were not
there, and spoke to Miss Morris. "For the present, certainly, it is
useless to persist," she said. "Unless Anne Lewis makes the explanation
of this matter, for a month she may not go on the playground, she may
not take any recreation except a walk alone in the yard, she may have
double tasks in the three studies in which her grade marks are lowest. I
should send the full account of the matter to Madame Patterson and
request that this child be removed from St. Cecilia's School, were it
not that Miss Drayton writes her sister is very ill. Therefore I will
wait until the visit which Miss Drayton proposes to make to the city
before the holidays and then I will place this matter before her. Anne
is now excused from the room. I do not desire to see longer that which I
have not before seen--a pupil who does not obey me."
Neither Mademoiselle Duroc nor Miss Morris mentioned the subject and we
may be sure that Anne did not, but somehow the girls got hold of enough
to gossip over and misrepresent the matter. It was whispered that Anne
had a great heap of jewels and money and was being punished because she
would not tell from whom she had stolen them. Perhaps she was to be sent
to prison. Her classmates stared at her with curious, unfriendly eyes
and even when she was allowed again to go on the playground, they kept
away from her. Poor little Anne was very lonely.
Several days after the jewels were discovered, Miss Morris was
exceedingly cross. It was impossible to please her, even with perfect
recitations, and those Anne had, for she was studying more diligently
than she had ever done--even the hated arithmetic--partly to occupy the
long, lonely hours and partly to make up for her unwilling disobedience.
By degrees Miss Morris became less stern. Anne ought to be punished and
that severely, she thought; no pupil had ever before dared disobey
Mademoiselle. But Miss Morris hated to see a child so lonely and
miserable. She grew gentler and gentler with Anne, crosser and crosser
with the other girls. It was certainly no affair of theirs to punish a
classmate for--they knew not what.
She saw and approved that sweet-tempered little Elsie Hart smiled and
nodded to Anne at every quiet chance. Elsie would have liked to go on
being friends, but that, she knew, would make the other girls angry and
she prudently preferred to be on bad terms with one rather than with
four. But she always offered her Saturday bonbons to Anne as to the
other girls; she couldn't enjoy them herself if she were so mean and
stingy as not to do that, she declared stoutly.
One afternoon--Anne was looking especially dejected as she took her
lonely walk in the west yard--Miss Morris thrust into Elsie's hands a
bag of candies and whispered hurriedly: "When you go to divide--yonder
is Anne under the grape arbor and I do believe she's crying."
Elsie trotted straight to Anne with her smiles and bonbons. Anne was so
cheered that she came in, sat down at the study-table, and took up her
history with whole-hearted interest.
Amelia, on the other side of the table, looked up and frowned. "That's
an awful hard hist'ry lesson," she said.
Anne was disinclined to speak to Amelia--Amelia had been so
hateful!--but finally she said rather curtly: "I don't think it's hard."
Amelia twirled a box that she held in her hand. "I do. I can't remember
those old Mexican names, or who went where and which whipped when."
That made Anne laugh. "Of course you can," she said. "Just play you're
there, marching 'long with the 'Merican soldiers. There's General
Taylor, sitting stiff and straight on a white horse. Up rides a little
Mexican on a pony. 'Look at our gre't big army and see how few men
you've got,' he says. 'S'render, General Taylor, s'render, before we
beat you into a cocked hat.' General Taylor looks at him--no, he
doesn't, he looks 'way 'cross the hills,--mountains, I mean--and says,
'General Taylor never s'renders.' And the Mexican whips his pony and
gallops away. Then General Taylor he draws up his little army of five
thousand br-rave Americans right here--" Anne put her finger on an
ink-spot.
"Let me get my book, Anne, and you go over all the lesson, won't you?"
pleaded Amelia. "I used to know my lessons when you did that. And Miss
Morris says if I don't do better she is going to drop me out of class
and give me review work in recreation hour. Please, Anne."
"I don't care if I do," responded Anne. She was lonely enough to feel
that she would even enjoy studying a history lesson with stupid Amelia.
"I'll leave my box here." Amelia started off, but came back a moment
later. "I forgot I left my purse in my box," she said. She opened the
purse and counted the money. "I had another two-franc piece," she said,
with a sharp look at Anne. Anne glanced from the dominoes that she was
drawing up in line of battle on the table.
"Did you?" she asked unconcernedly.
Her indifference provoked Amelia. "Yes, I did," she asserted. "I had two
two-franc pieces in my purse. One of them's gone. Did you take it, Anne
Lewis?"
"Take it?" Anne repeated. Was Amelia really suspecting--accusing her of
taking the money? That was impossible!
"Yes, take it," cried Amelia, flushed and angry. "You stole those jewels
and money from no one knows who. Now you've stolen my money. You've got
to give it back."
Every drop of blood seemed to ebb from Anne's face, leaving it as pale
as ashes, while her narrowed eyes blazed like live coals.
"If you say that I--that word--again, Amelia Harvey," she said slowly,
"I will strike you."
"Why, Anne Lewis!" exclaimed the shocked voice of Miss Morris who was
sitting at her desk, correcting exercises. "What a wicked speech!"
Anne was unrepentant. "She shall not say--that," she said. "She is
wicked to tell such a falsehood."
"I want my money," persisted Amelia.
"How much money did you have in your purse, Amelia?" asked Miss Morris.
"Think now. Be sure."
"I had two two-franc pieces," insisted Amelia, "and one is gone."
"You had two yeth'day," lisped Elsie Hart, who had just come in. "And
you bought a boxth of chocolath."
Amelia reddened. "I--I'd forgot," she muttered.
"Forgot! Amelia! You spent your money and then accused your schoolmate
of taking it!" Miss Morris exclaimed indignantly. "You are a careless,
careless, bad, bad girl. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You must
beg Anne to forgive you."
"I'll not forgive her, not if she asks me a thousand years," stormed
Anne.
"Anne, Anne," reproved Miss Morris. "What a bitter, revengeful spirit!
It makes me unhappy to hear you speak so."
"I don't care. I'm unhappy. I want everybody else to be unhappy," said
Anne, as she left the room, sobbing as if her heart would break.