"Here sit I, and my broken heart!" sighed Dreda dramatically, as she subsided into a chair and drew her shoulders together in an involuntary shiver. It had been cold work standing at the door watching the departure of the car, and the atmosphere of the deserted room was not calculated to cheer her spirits. "When you've had a great shock your constitution is enfeebled; when you're enfeebled, you are sensitive to chills; a chill on an enfeebled constitution is generally fatal. Perhaps I've received my death blow this afternoon in more ways than one." Dreda sniffed and shivered miserably once more. The stream of visitors was still departing, saying good-bye to Miss Bretherton and the teachers in the drawing-room and making their way to the door. Dreda would not risk leaving the study and encountering strange faces on the staircase; besides which, it did not seem her place to seek her companions at this moment. It was her companions who should seek _her_. "In the hour of my triumph they all crowded round me; now I am a pelican on the housetop, and no one cares if I am dead or alive. I must get accustomed to it, I suppose. Shame and humiliation must henceforth be my portion. Only fifteen and a half--in _years_. In suffering I'm an old, old woman! Mr Rawdon was sorry; I saw it in his face; but he liked Susan's best. Susan has won the prize. Where is Susan now? Has she forgotten all about me?" As if in answer to this question the handle of the door turned, and a head was thrust round the corner. A voice exclaimed: "Here she is!" and Nancy entered the room, followed closely by Susan herself. They stood and looked at Dreda, and Dreda looked at them, but none of the three uttered a word. Then suddenly Susan whispered something in Nancy's ear, and while that young person hurried from the room with a most unusual celerity, Susan dropped quietly on her knees beside the dying fire and began coaxing it into a blaze. Dreda sat back in her chair and watched the process with a dull, detached curiosity. Susan's back looked so narrow and small; the brown dress fastened at the back with a row of ugly bone buttons; as she knelt the soles of her new slippers seemed to fill up the entire foreground. They were startlingly, shockingly white! As she bent from side to side blowing skilfully upon the struggling flames, one could catch a glimpse of her profile, white and wan, with red circles round the eyes. Such a poor, weary little conqueror, on her knees striving to serve her fallen rival. Something stirred in Dreda's heart; the ice melted, she cleared her throat, and addressed her friend by name. "Susan!" Susan sat back on her heels, lifting scared, pitiful eyes. "Susan," said Dreda regally, "I don't hate you. You needn't be frightened. I don't hate you a bit--I'm _sorry_ for you. This should have been your triumph, and I have spoiled it. It's very hard on you too, Susan!"