e mild disease might be a valuable form of
retribution, and also afford the invalid leisure to repent of her sins.
Still she did not quite like to mention this thought aloud, as it seemed
too unkindly vengeful with regard to any one so obviously miserable as
Gertrude.

One day on charitable plans intent the two conspirators dragged Gertrude
out across the brown fields to have fun building a bonfire, as they had
done the previous spring. But somehow the expedition was not much of a
success--possibly because the wood was too damp to burn inspiritingly. On
that other occasion Sara had been with them, and had kept them laughing.
She could say the funniest things without stirring a muscle of her small
solemn face. That stump speech of hers given from a genuine stump had
sent them actually reeling home. This year--alas!--while returning to
college rather silently, they saw Sara plodding toward them with an air
of being out for sober exercise, not pleasure. The moment she spied them,
she deliberately retraced her steps, and vanished through a hole in the
hedge. This incident set Gertrude to chattering so excitedly about
nothing in particular that the others knew she cared even more than they
had fancied.

On the evening of the last day of March, Bea and Berta came rushing into
the dining-room twenty minutes late for dinner. When they both declared
that they did not want any soup--their favorite kind, too--Gertrude
sighed impatiently over countermanding her order to the maid. It seemed
as if she were not getting rested one bit this vacation, though she did
nothing but read novels all day long. She felt sometimes as if she were
hurrying every minute to escape from herself and her own thoughts.
Everything irritated her in the strangest way. In all her busy healthful
life she had never been nervous before. It was not hard work that had
worn upon her. The doctor told them when they were freshmen that no girl
ever broke down from work unless worry was added. Gertrude knew perfectly
well what torturing little worry was gnawing away in her mind. She kept
telling herself that her speech to Sara had been true--it was so--Sara
had broken her engagement--and she could not, could not, could not humble
herself to apologize. In fact, Sara was the one who ought to offer
apologies. And all this time wilful Gertrude refused to acknowledge even
to herself that she was juggling with her conscience in the desperate
determination to hold herself f