“Nursed him?  In his own house, you mean?”

“Yes, at night, too, and she stayed until he was better, and caught a cold coming back.”

“Well, I never!” said Alma, and I remember that I was very pleased with myself during this interview, for by the moonlight which was then shining into the room, I could see that Alma’s eyes were sparkling.

The next night we recommenced our conferences in bed, when Alma told us all about her holiday, which she had spent “way up in St. Moritz,” among deep snow and thick ice, skating, bobbing, lugging, and above all riding astride, and dragging a man on skis behind her.

“Such lots of fun,” she said.  And the best of it was at night when there were dances and fancy-dress balls with company which included all the smart people in Europe, and men who gave a girl such a good time if she happened to be pretty and was likely to have a dot.

Alma had talked so eagerly and the girls had listened so intently, that nobody was aware that Sister Angela had returned to the room until she stepped forward and said: 

“Alma Lier, I’m ashamed of you.  Go back to your bed, miss, this very minute.”

The other girls crept away and I half covered my face with my bed-clothes, but Alma stood up to Sister Angela and answered her back.

“Go to bed yourself, and don’t speak to me like that, or you’ll pay for your presumption.”

“Pay?  Presumption?  You insolent thing, you are corrupting the whole school and are an utter disgrace to it.  I warned you that I would tell the Reverend Mother what you are and now I’ve a great mind to do it.”

“Do it.  I dare you to do it.  Do it to-night, and to-morrow morning I will do something.”

“What will you do, you brazen hussy?” said Sister Angela, but I could see that her lip was trembling.

“Never mind what.  If I’m a hussy I’m not a hypocrite, and as for corrupting the school, and being a disgrace to it, I’ll leave the Reverend Mother to say who is doing that.”

Low as the light was I could see that Sister Angela was deadly pale.  There was a moment of silence in which I thought she glanced in my direction, and then stammering something which I did not hear, she left the dormitory.

It was long before she returned and when she did so I saw her creep into her cubicle and sit there for quite a great time before going to bed.  My heart was thumping hard, for I had a vague feeling that I had been partly to blame for what had occurred, but after a while I fell asleep and remembered no more until I was awakened in the middle of the night by somebody kissing me in my sleep.

It was Sister Angela, and she was turning away, but I called her back, and she knelt by my bed and whispered: 

“Hush!  I know what has happened, but I don’t blame you for it.”

I noticed that she was wearing her out-door cloak, and that she was breathing rapidly, just as she did on the night she came from the chaplain’s quarters, and when I asked if she was going anywhere she said yes, and if I ever heard anything against Sister Angela I was to think the best of her.