er nerves were all to
pieces, and school was the last thing I should have recommended then.
But now it is different. She is--how old did you say? Nearly fifteen?
More than old enough to go to school! And really there is no earthly
reason why you should keep her at home any longer. She is perfectly
healthy and well so far as her physical health is concerned, and I have
no fear of a nervous breakdown now, so long as she isn't overworked.
After a term or two at school I think you will find that she quite
overcomes this shyness and nervous fear of things. Try it, at any
rate, Mrs. Wilmott. It can do no harm, and it may do all the good in
the world."

And so Geraldine's lessons with her resident governess came to an end,
together with her quiet country life; and she found herself in Cubicle
Thirteen in the Pink Dormitory at Wakehurst Priory, with all the
unknown horrors of a first term at school waiting her.

But in spite of her nerves and her shyness, and her lack of physical
courage, Geraldine had a queer kind of moral pluck that was really
rather splendid in such a frightened individual. She knew nothing of
the nerve-specialist's advice, or that she was being sent to school as
a sort of last resource. She did not even consciously know that she
possessed nerves at all, or that her shyness and fearfulness were
largely due to that terrible October night three years ago. But she
did know that for some reason or other her mother was always terribly
anxious and worried about her. And she had made up her mind that,
however bad school might be, she would never breathe one word of her
unhappiness at home.

"I won't even tell her about my having been put into that other girl's
cubicle," she thought to herself, as she sat huddled up upon her bed.
"But, oh, I do so wish I hadn't been! I know--I'll begin my letter to
Mother now. I can tell her about my cubicle, how nice and pretty it
is, at any rate. And it will be something to do while I am waiting."

She fetched her writing materials and began a letter home, but she was
not to be left long in peace. About ten minutes after Dorothy's
reproachful exit, a bell rang violently through the school buildings,
and hearing a general rush of footsteps down the dormitory, the new
girl peeped shyly out into the corridor to see what was happening.
There was nobody near except Phyllis Tressider, who was hurriedly
scrambling the last of her clothes into an already overfull drawer.