Clain promised me that he would tell you. I
can't come back to our camp in Beechwood Forest, I cannot be a Girl
Scout. I may never be able to walk again. No, I do not suffer, I never
have suffered, that is the dreadful part of it."

Kara's hands now clutched the other girl's shoulders.

"Tory, don't look at me like that. It may not be true always."

-----

[A] See "Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing."

CHAPTER V

A DISCUSSION

"The land that is always afternoon," Joan Peters quoted dreamily.

Twelve girls were seated in a circle in a clearing in Beechwood
Forest. Save for the fact that fallen logs formed their resting place
here was a modern American "Agora of Mycanae," the well polished
circle of stones, where the earliest of civilized peoples sat for
council and judgment.

The afternoon sunlight slanted through the deep polished green of the
trees.

A few moments before, the other girls had been earnestly talking, then
had ensued a thoughtful silence and Jean's irrelevant speech.

"I never have understood exactly what that expression means, but it
always has had a fascination for me," she continued. "Please don't
think I am forgetting what we have been discussing this last hour. To
my mind there can be no two ways of looking at it. The only problem we
have is Kara. And, thank goodness, we do not have to decide what is
wisest and best for her."

Seated beside Joan, Tory Drew remained oddly still. Quiet either of
body or mind was an unusual phase with her. Life and movement were her
natural characteristics, more marked than with most girls.

"I wish I could think as Joan does, that the decision does not rest
with us and we _must_ be content," she added finally. "I feel as if I
_knew_ it was the only thing for Kara to come back to us and as if no
one and nothing could induce me to think otherwise."

"Not a very sensible point of view, Victoria," a voice answered.

In the tone there was a different enunciation. In the voice there was
a different emphasis from the other Girl Scouts. Besides, no one of
them ever spoke to Tory without using her abbreviated title.

The girl who had made the remark was different in manner, appearance
and costume from the rest of the group, although not conspicuously so.
Martha Greaves was an English girl who had crossed the ocean early in
the summer with Tory Drew's father and step-mother to spend the summer
in Westhaven. She was singularly tall with light brown hair