"How did it happen? Some of you run at once for a doctor--Dr.
Williams in Grove Road--Oh, quick!--Ida Starr, how _did_ it
happen?"
Ida did not move, but seemed to tighten her embrace. The other
pupils all looked fearfully hither and thither, but none ventured to
speak.
"Ida!" repeated Miss Rutherford, dropping on her knees by the two,
and beginning to wipe away some of the blood with her handkerchief.
"Speak, child! Has some one gone for the doctor? How was it done?"
The face at length turned upon the questioner was almost as ghastly
and red-stained as that it had been pressed against. But it had
become self-controlled; the dark eyes looked straight forward with
an expression marvellously full of meaning in one so young; the lips
did not tremble as they spoke.
"I did it, Miss Rutherford. I have killed Harriet. I, and nobody
else."
"You? How, child?"
"I killed her with the slate, Miss Rutherford; this slate, look."
She pointed to a slate without a frame which lay on the floor. There
were sums worked on the uppermost side, and the pencil-marks were
half obliterated. For a moment the schoolmistress's amazement held
her motionless, but fresh and louder moans recalled her to the
immediate necessities of the case.
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