Warren stood a moment in indecision. Rosemary's pallor frightened him and she was evidently concealing¹ something. Sarah and Shirley glanced at him hostilely as though, he thought resentfully, he was in some way to blame.  
He turned on his heel and ran over to the mill, shutting the door with a resounding² slam. In a trice he had snapped the padlock and had come back to the three girls huddled³ under the tree.
 
And then a cheerful whistle sounded and down the lane came the one person Rosemary least desired to see at that moment—Doctor Hugh.
 
"Got through early!" he called, vaulting⁴ the fence and striding toward them. "Why, Rosemary! What's wrong?"
 
Rosemary made a desperate effort to recover her self-control. She managed a shaky smile, but she did not dare try to stand.
 
"Perhaps you can find out," said Warren grimly. "I found her like this a few minutes ago and Shirley and Sarah looking as though they'd seen a ghost; and not a word will any of 'em say."
 
Very coolly, very quietly, very firmly, Doctor Hugh lifted Sarah aside and took her place beside Rosemary on the crate⁵. He rested the tips of his fingers for a moment on the slender wrist nearest him. Then—
 
"What frightened you. Rosemary?" he asked evenly.
 
The touch of his skilled fingers seemed to slow down her hammering pulse. Rosemary's troubled gaze swept the circle of faces surrounding her, Sarah's and Shirley's expressive⁶ of their anxiety lest she be "sick," Warren's baffled and worried, and came back to the steady, understanding dark eyes behind the doctor's glasses. In that moment Hugh became a tower of refuge to her and she suddenly knew what she would do.
 
"I don't know what made me act like this," she apologized, a little tinge⁷ of color creeping into her white face. "I'm sorry, because I am afraid I have made you think it is worse than it is."
 
She stopped and looked at Sarah who stared at her in a puzzled way.
 
"You won't want me to tell, Sarah dear," went on Rosemary, still calmly, "but this time I think I'd better; because—well, because if there should be a next time and you should hurt yourself, I should be to blame. Besides, there is Shirley."
 
Warren drew a deep breath and Doctor Hugh sent a look toward Sarah that made that young person decidedly uncomfortable though she pretended to be absorbed in the antics of a beetle⁸ and sat down, cross-legged, to consider it.
 
"Then it was the windmill?" asked Warren.
 
"Yes, it was the windmill," nodded Rosemary, putting her arm around Shirley who was beginning to feel that her adored older sister had for once deserted⁹ her.
 
And then she told them, graphically¹⁰ and in detail, how she had found the two children on the platform and of the climbs she had made to bring them down safely.
 
"That part wasn't so bad, really it wasn't," she explained earnestly. "Though when Sarah's foot slipped—"
 
Warren looked at Doctor Hugh.
 
"But I keep thinking of that awful platform!" cried Rosemary, hiding her face against her brother's shoulder and tightening¹¹ her arm about Shirley. "Every time I close my eyes I can see them there—and it is such a narrow space and they could have fallen off so easily—"
 
"Stop!" said Doctor Hugh sternly. "Stop that at once, Rosemary. You are letting your imagination run away with you. Closing your eyes and thinking what might have happened, will not do at all. You'll get the better of your nerves, if you try. Don't think what has happened and, above all, don't talk about it. Tag around after Warren and Rich to-day and keep so busy you haven't time to think—you'll find the worst is over now that you have told us."
 
Rosemary lifted her head. She was quite herself, her blue eyes told Warren. Under her arm, Shirley peeped uncertainly at her brother.
 
"Come around here where I can see you, Shirley," he commanded.
 
She obeyed disconsolately¹².
 
"You were there when Warren said that you must not go in the windmill, weren't you?" said Doctor Hugh. "And now you see what happens when you disobey him. I understand that Sarah suggested this disobedience, but that doesn't excuse you, Shirley; there have been plenty of times when you have refused to do as Sarah asked you to. You didn't have to be naughty because she was, did you?"
 
Shirley shook her head.
 
"I know you're sorry," her brother went on. "Then tell Warren so—and next time, Shirley, have a mind and will of your own when you are asked to do something you know is wrong."
 
Warren accepted Shirley'............