lways as the tears came near to flowing she fell to work afresh and
checked them. Not until the room looked neat again did she remember that
she was hungry. Nuncey had cooked a pasty for her, and she fetched it
from the cupboard, where it lay in a basket covered by a spotless white
cloth. As she did so, her eyes fell on a damp spot on the floor, where,
after bandaging Mr. Sam, she had carefully washed out the stain of his
blood.

She looked at her hands. They were clean; and yet having set down the
basket on the desk, and turned her stool so that she might not see the
spot on the floor, she continued to stare at them, and from them to the
white cloth. A while she stood thus, irresolute, still listening to the
bees zooming against the pane. Then with a sudden effort of will she
walked out and across the yard, to the pump in the far corner.

She was stooping to raise the pump handle, but straightened herself up
again at the sound--as it seemed to her--of a muffled sob.

She looked behind her and around. The playground was empty, the air
across its gravelled surface quivering under the noonday heat.
She listened.

Two long minutes passed before the sound was repeated; and this time she
knew it for the sob of a child. It came from behind an angle of the
building which hid a strip of the playground from view. She ran thither
at once, and as she turned the corner her eyes fell on little Clem.

She had missed him from his place when the children returned to the
schoolroom. His sister, she supposed, had taken him home.

He stood sentry now in the shade under the north wall of the building.
He stood there so resolutely that, for the instant, Hester could scarcely
believe the sobs had come from him. But he had heard her coming; and the
face he turned to her, though tearless, was woefully twisted and
twitching.

"My poor child!"

He stretched out both hands.

"Where is Myra? I want Myra, please!"

CHAPTER XV.

MYRA IN DISGRACE.

Myra was in her bedroom, under lock and key; and this is how it had
happened.

"What put it into your head to make that speech?" asked Mrs. Purchase, as
she and Mr. Sam wended their way back to Hall. In form the question was
addressed to her nephew; in tone, to herself.

Mr. Sam paused as if for breath, and plucking down a wisp of honeysuckle
from the hedgerow, sniffed at it to gain time.

"I don't like talking about such things," he answered; "but it came into
my hea