moving train she decided that he certainly did not. She sighed as she
turned to leave the station. Life seemed suddenly to have assumed new
perplexities. Percy's act weighed heavily on her mind. It seemed such a
base return for all Aunt Harriet was doing on their behalf. She longed
to thank her for her kindness and say how much she appreciated going to
the High School, but she could not find the words. Theknowledge of the
secret raised an extra barrier between herself and her aunt. So she sat
at lunch time even shyer and more speechless than usual, and let the
ball of conversation persistently drop.

"Fretting for her brother, I suppose," thought Miss Beach. "She can talk
fast enough with friends of her own age. Well, I suppose an old body
like myself mustn't expect to be company for a girl of fifteen!"

She was too proud to let the hurt feeling show itself on her face,
however, and propping up the newspaper beside her plate, she plunged
into the latest accounts from the Front.




CHAPTER VI

A Crisis


Winona had been more than a month, nearly five weeks indeed, at the
Seaton High School. In the first few days of her introduction to
V.a. she had told herself that the difficulty of the work
consisted largely in its newness, and that as soon as she grew