Therefore have we three maidens, after deep thought, appointed this
evening wherein the innocent may declare her innocence and the wrong-
doer confess her sin. For only in confession and by the return of the
money can she ever hope to be at peace with herself. Moreover, we
believe that no Camp Fire girl will take this oath of purity without
telling the entire truth. Betty Ashton will you come forward first."
Betty jumped up quickly. During Edith's long harangue her group of
listeners had been supremely uncomfortable, so that no one of them dared
do more than barely glance at Nan, who sat with her knees up to her
chin, her eyes cast upon the ground and her black hair covering her face
like a veil. If she felt, and of course she did, that Edith's speech was
directed toward her rather than toward any other girl, neither by a
sound nor a movement did she betray it. Not even when Betty, having
finished with her part in the ceremony, deliberately forsaking her
former place in the circle came back and sitting down next her
deliberately laid her arm across Nan's bowed shoulders. There was
nothing to do or say, she would only make things worse by any protest
now, and yet Betty was bitterly grieved and offended. If Nan had done
wrong this public method of making her either confess or perjure herself
she felt to be wholly unkind.
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