your noble father."
Before she could speak I sprang to my feet.
"You need not ask her," I said. "I did very wrong. I posted theletters."
"That will do," said the Baroness. A relieved look passed over herfeatures. "Riki, stop crying. Your conduct has been beyond words, butI will not say any more to blame you just now.--Fraulein Schumacher,conduct the Comtesse to her room, and see that she does not leave it;stay with her there, for I cannot trust her alone."
The German governess immediately conveyed the weeping girl from theroom, and I found myself the one culprit who was now to be dealt with.
"I must ask you," said the Baroness in her very bitterest tone, "whyyou, an English girl, brought up without the terribly circumscribed paleof the German girl, dared to help her to convey letters from thishouse."
"I did it without thinking," I said.
"The rule on the subject of letters was in your bedroom."
"I know."
"You had read the rules?"
"That is true; but they did not make any impression on me; I did notremember any of them."
"You must tell me exactly what occurred; also on what dates you postedthe letters."
Gradually, piece by piece, the Baroness got the information from me. Myconduct seemed to grow blacker and blacker in my own eyes. The Baronessevidently thought very badly of me. After a time she said:
"I shall be forced to make a distinction between you and the othergirls. It must be known amongst the English girls--and we have six orseven in this establishment--that their letters will still be unread,that their correspondence will still be unmolested, with the exceptionof the correspondence and letters of one girl--Rachel Grant. In futureyou must post every letter in the box in the hall, and each letter youreceive must be first of all opened and read by me before it is handedto you. That is your just punishment. I could do much more severethings, but I will to a certain extent overlook your inexperience."
I left the room feeling as though the very floor would open to receiveme. I went upstairs with my cheeks on fire. How was I to live? Howwas I to endure this?
Presently Mademoiselle Wrex followed me.
"Oh mademoiselle, I cannot bear this!" I exclaimed. "I must go away."
"Go away?" she said.
"Yes; how can I bear to stay at the school when I am disgraced?"
"But your punishment is not very great," said the French teacher.
"But to let the others know, and to have my freedom as an English girltaken away from me!"
"It will be restored again, I am sure, if you bear your punishment withmeekness," said Mademoiselle; "but if you rebel and make a fuss theBaroness will keep up her indignation."
"And will she tell my people at home?"
"I do not think she will do that if you bear your punishment with alldue patience. You did wrong."
"I did wrong, but not such a dreadful sin as you give me credit for. Idid wrong in ignorance. There is a great, great difference betweendoing a thing you know is wrong and doing a thing that is wrong withoutknowing it."
A slight smile played round the lips of Mademoiselle. She was, as arule, kindly; but she could not quite understand my nice distinction.
"The effect is the same," she said. "Do you not know that for a younglady in this school to have a correspondence with a schoolboy, as theComtesse Riki has done, is quite scandalous? It would ruin the school.The Comtesse must be made an example of."
"Oh, what are they going to do with her, poor thing?"
"She will not be dismissed; that would be too disgraceful; but she isfor a whole week to be confined to her own room, and no girl in theschool will be allowed to speak to her. At the end of that time shewill be restored to a certain amount of liberty; but her actions will bemost carefully watched."
"And Heinrich?" I said.
"Heinrich?" said Mademoiselle, with a start. "You are not interested inhim, I hope?"
"Oh no, no!"
"He will receive one short letter from the Baroness, and his master atthe school will receive another. I do not think anybody in the futureneed trouble themselves about Heinrich."
Nothing could exceed the contempt which she threw into the word. Aftera time she left me.
The scene of the morning had certainly not made my cold better; but whenHermione came up I confided my troubles to her. She said she thoughtthat I was lucky to have got off as cheaply as I had.
"Rosalind has been telling me of another girl, an English girl, whohelped some Russians to get their communications into the post, and shewas dismissed--sent back to England within twenty-four hours. The onlyreason you are not treated as harshly is because the Baroness reallybelieves that you did what you did unwittingly."
"I did," I said. "Oh, I hate this school! I was never meant to be aFrench or German girl. I have lived such a free life, I shall die inthis cage."
"No, you won't, you silly girl. As to your thinking that we Englishgirls will think any the less of you, you may be certain we won't."
But, after all, the punishment which was so severe, which I so dreaded,which seemed to shake my nature to its very depths and to turn me atonce from a happy, interested, contented girl into a mass of sulkinessand misery, was, for the time at least, to be averted--averted in a veryfearful way--for that evening there came a telegram from my step-mother:
"Your father very ill; one of the teachers must bring you backimmediately."
Mademoiselle Wrex was the lady who had the task of conveying me home.There was a great fuss and bustle and distress in the school when thetelegram reached me. I scarcely knew what to do with myself. Augustawas speechless with misery. She begged and implored me to take her withme.
"But I can't," I said. "And why should I? He is not your father."
"No," said the poor thing--"no."
I really pitied her. She sank back on the sofa in our littlesitting-room with a face like death.
"If you see him, can you just tell him how he has helped me?"
"I will," I said. I pitied her now. What had seemed silly andunreasonable when the Professor was in health assumed quite a differentaspect when the dear Professor was dangerously ill.
My feelings were torn between the misery of the morning and my relief atnot being publicly disgraced before the other girls, and the terror andfear of returning to my home to find my father very ill.
Hermione was a host in herself. She superintended my packing; it wasshe who saw that I had plenty of sandwiches to eat on the journey, shewho brought my fur cloak for me to wear on the steamer. Even theBaroness was very kind. She came into the hall and saw that I waswarmly wrapped up.
"We will hope for the best, Rachel," she said.
I raised my eyes to her face and wondered if I should ever see heragain--if this little flash of school life was all I was to be permittedto enjoy. But had I enjoyed it? I did not know. I could scarcely tellwhat my own sensations were.
A minute later I was in the cab. Hermione's face was no longer visiblefrom the doorway; Augusta, who was standing on the balcony of oursitting-room and waving frantically, was lost to view: the school, withits brightness, its life, its strange spirit of intrigue, its curiousun-English customs, seemed to vanish for ever. I flung myself back inthe cab and cried as though my heart would break.
PART TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE PROFESSOR'S ILLNESS.
There are two ways of taking a journey. I had come to the school withexpectations bright and rosy. I had been there for a little over twomonths, and I was returning home close on the Easter holidays with verydifferent feelings. As I was whirled through the darkness by thenight-express which was to convey me to Calais I could not help thinkingof all that had occurred. I was a totally different girl from what Ihad been when I started on that journey. I had seen a great deal offresh life; I had lived in a new atmosphere; I had made new friends; Ihad found that the world was a larger place than even big London; thatthere were all sorts of different
experiences; and even so, that Imyself was only on the threshold of life. Could I ever regret thenarrow time when my principal friends were the Swan girls, when ascolding from old Hannah was the worst thing that could occur to me,after what I had lately lived through?
But then the occurrence of that very morning came over me with a flashof intolerable shame. I was thinking more of my school than of myfather; but, of course, all the time he was in the background.
We arrived at Calais, and the passage across the Channel was withoutincident of any sort, and we found ourselves at Victoria Station at anearly hour on the following morning. It was a dreary, cold, and foggyday, and I shivered as I stood in my fur cloak on the platform whileMademoiselle ran wildly about, collecting the luggage, and trying