"Yes, my twin brother, Miss Woodhull. I do not expect _you_ to understand what we have always been to each other. As to their presence here this afternoon, I knew absolutely nothing of it until Athol pitched his m.u.f.f into the air and gave our old yell of victory at the end of the game,"

and Beverly nearly laughed at the recollection of her start when the old familiar sound fell upon her ears, and the memory of the way in which that m.u.f.f had hurtled into the air.

"Your mirth is most ill-timed, Miss Ashby. This is by no means a facetious occasion, please understand. I do not lightly tolerate the infringement of my rules, as you will learn to your cost. If, as you state, you are ignorant of the contents of this letter you may now read it aloud in my presence. Perhaps that may refresh your memory and enable you to answer _truthfully_ the other questions."

Miss Woodhull held the letter toward Beverly. The girl did not stir.

"Did you understand my command?"

"I did, Miss Woodhull. I have already told you the entire truth, but I must decline to read that letter because it is not mine."

"Decline! Decline!" almost shrieked the infuriated princ.i.p.al. "Do you dare defy my commands?"

"I do not wish to defy your orders, Miss Woodhull, but I can not read someone else's letter."

Beverly's voice was trembling partly from nervousness, partly from outraged pride.

"You shall read that letter to me whether it is yours or not though I have not the slightest doubt that it is yours, and that you are trying to shield yourself behind some purely fict.i.tious person. You seem to possess a lively imagination."

Beverly stood rigid. Miss Woodhull waited.

"Perhaps you will be good enough to give a name to your fict.i.tious being?"

"I do know to whom that letter was sent, for I saw her drop it. I picked it up to return it to her, but before I could do so it disappeared from my history. I could not help reading the first line because it stood out so plainly before me when I picked the letter from the floor. I know nothing further of its contents, and I do not wish to. That line was silly enough. The girl did not know what had become of it until I went to her later and told her about finding it and also about its loss afterward. From that moment to this I have never laid eyes upon it, and I wish I never had seen it at all. You may believe me or not as you choose, but until I came into this school such things had never entered my head, and mother and Uncle Athol would be perfectly disgusted with the whole showdown. And so am I." Beverly paused for want of breath.

_"Who dropped that letter?"_ The words were in italics, notwithstanding the fact that some vague doubts were beginning to form in the back of the princ.i.p.al's brain.

"Do you for one second think that I will tell you?" blazed Beverly.

"I am very positive that you will tell me without a moment's delay, or you will be suspended from this school within twenty-four hours, if not expelled. Her name! At once!"

"I shall never tell you no matter what you do to me. What do you take me for? How _dare_ you think me capable of such a low-down, mucker trick?"

Unconsciously she had lapsed into Athol's vernacular. It was the last touch to Miss Woodhull's wrath. She actually flew up out of her chair and catching Beverly by her shoulders shook her soundly. Then it all happened in a flash. Miss Woodhull was a tall woman and a large woman as well. She weighed at least one-hundred-seventy pounds. But from lack of proper exercise (she loathed walking) and the enjoyment of the many luxuries which the past successful years had made possible, she was exactly like a well-modeled India rubber figure.

Beverly was tall for a girl not yet sixteen, and as the result of having grown up with two active healthy boys, and having done every earthly thing which they had done, she was a living, vital bunch of energy and well-developed muscles, and fully as strong as Athol.

Never since tiny childhood when Mammy Riah had smacked her for some misdeed, or her mother had spanked her for some real transgression, had hand been laid upon her excepting in a caress. That any human being could so lose her self-control as to resort to such methods of correction she would not have believed possible.

Then in a flash all the fighting blood of the Ashbys and Seldons boiled, and with a cry of outraged feelings Beverly Ashby laid hold of Miss Woodhull's flabby arms with a pair of slender muscular hands, backed her by main force against the chair which she had so hastily vacated, and plumped that dumbfounded lady down upon it with a force which made her teeth crack together, as she cried indignantly:

"How dare you touch me! How dare you!"

Then with a whirl she was across the room, out of the door and up the stairs to Study 10, which she entered like a cyclone and rushed across into her bedroom, slamming and locking the door.

What mental processes took place behind that locked door her astonished room-mates, who had been eagerly awaiting her return, could not even guess, and dared not venture to inquire. Not a sound came from the room.

"What do you suppose has happened?" asked Sally breathlessly.

"Something a good deal more serious than we have any idea of. Beverly Ashby is not the kind of girl to look or act like that without a mighty good cause. Did you notice her face? It frightened me," was Aileen's awed reply.

"What can we do?" asked Sally in deep distress.

"Not one single, solitary thing, and that's the very worst of it. We don't even know what has happened," and the two girls began to prepare for bed in a bewildered sort of way.

Meanwhile down in that perfectly appointed study a very dazed woman sat rigid and silent. For the very first time in all her life she had encountered a will stronger than her own, had met in the person of an individual only a quarter of her own age a force which had literally and figuratively swept her off her feet and set at naught a resolution which she believed to be indomitable. And worst of all, it had all come to pa.s.s because she had lost her self-control. Up to her own outbreak Miss Woodhull was forced to admit that Beverly had been absolutely courteous.

It was purely her own act which had precipitated that climax. For fully half an hour she sat as one stunned, then she said, and the words almost hissed from her colorless lips:

"I shall make an example of her! She shall be expelled in disgrace!"

though then and there she resolved that none should ever learn of that final scene, and--well--somehow, though she could not explain her conviction, she knew that the outside world would never learn of it through Beverly.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE WEE SMA' HOURS

When Beverly swept into her room her thoughts were like a seething cauldron; One instant one impression boiled to the surface, only to be submerged the very next by others surging to the top. She could not think connectedly. Everything seemed jumbled pell mell in her brains. Just one incident took definite shape: She had been shaken like a naughty child and told that she was lying. And all because every instinct of honor and justice forbade her betraying a cla.s.s-mate, even though she entertained for her little less than contempt. And the effect of Miss Woodhull's act was very much as though a man had deliberately walked up to Admiral Seldon, accused him of lying and slapped his face.

During the six months which she had spent at Leslie Manor, Beverly Ashby had been no more nor less than just herself: neither better nor worse than the average girl. But for her six months in a boarding-school presided over by a woman who had never known any real girlhood, or girlhood's exuberance, was an experience far different than for the average girl. Miss Woodhull had grown more and more iconoclastic, and more of a law unto herself with each advancing year. She had become as adamant to all natural impulses, and apparently dead to all affection.

Bitterly intolerant of suggestion, advice, or even the natural laws of ethics. With each year she had grown more difficult to live with, and less and less fitted to govern growing girls. But in the beginning the school had established a reputation for the thoroughness of its curriculum and its instruction, as well as for its discipline, and there is little doubt that some of the girls which had come to it during the past thirty years were in need of some discipline.

But Beverly Ashby was not of the type who required discipline of the order Miss Woodhull believed in. Beverly had lived for more than fifteen years under the discipline of love and good judgement, and had developed fairly well in that atmosphere. Her mother had never reproved or punished her in anger. The Admiral, while adoring her, was "boss of the ship," and both she and Athol had always recognized that fact. His word was law.

Moreover, she had always been treated as a reasoning human being _invariably_ trusted; a nice code of honor having been established from the moment the twins could understand the meaning of that fine old word.

And that is much earlier in children's lives than a good many grownups believe.

No wonder an outraged little mortal now sat at her window, her heart beating tattoo, her temples throbbing, her cheeks blazing, her eyes flashing, but her hands clenched and icy cold. There she sat until all sounds in the big house were hushed. She was as rigid as though carved from marble, even though her breath came and went pantingly.

The hand upon the clock in the stable tower crept from hour to hour, the bell telling off the half-hours. She neither saw nor heard. Then came the twelve long deliberate strokes announcing the witching hour. At the first stroke Beverly started into life. By the time the last had sounded the pretty pink dinner gown she had been wearing lay in a tumbled heap upon the bed where she had tossed it.

By this time the moon which had been pouring its flood of light into her room was dropping behind the tall trees and the room was growing dark.

The steam heat had long since died down and the room was cold. She was entirely unconscious of physical conditions. Silently as a shadow she worked, and with the swiftness of a cloud scudding before a gale of wind.

In ten minutes the room was in perfect order and she was garbed in her stout riding-boots, heavy riding skirt, a warm flannel shirt waist and heavy sweater. Her wool skating cap was pulled tight down about her ears, and she carried her riding crop in her gloved hands.

Gently raising her window she slipped out upon the piazza roof, crawled upon her hands and knees to the edge, tossed her riding crop to the ground and then, boy-fashion slid down the piazza pillar as easily as Athol could have done it. Picking up the riding crop she sped across the lawn to the stable, well hidden by the foliage.

Andrew Jackson Jefferson and his two a.s.sistants slept in a little cottage behind the stable. The stable door was locked but a small window at the side had been left open for ventilation. Monkey-wise she scrambled up and through it. A low nickering from the horses greeted her; they knew her at once. Apache was contentedly munching his hay. Horses sleep or eat capriciously. To slip on his bridle, adjust and cinch his saddle took but a few minutes. Then she led him from his stall, silently unbarred the big doors, led him outside, again closed the doors carefully, and mounted him. The night was clear and cold. The moon, though now well toward the western mountains, still made it bright. Not a sound had Beverly uttered for over two hours, but now, leaning forward she clasped both arms around the little broncho's neck, rested her face against his mane, and whispered:

"Apache, no Seldon or Ashby can ever be told that they are lying. Do you understand? We are going back to people who don't say such things. It's a long distance, and I don't know the way very well I may get lost, but I don't believe that _you_ will. Take me safely home, Apache. _Please, please_ take me home to dear old Woodbine and mother and Uncle Athol and Mammy Riah and Athol and--and everybody I love."

A little sob ended the entreaty, and as though he understood every word she had spoken Apache gave a neigh loud enough to waken the Seven Sleepers.

Beverly clapped her hand across his nostrils as she cried:

"Oh, you mustn't! You will wake everybody up! Go!" and with a bound Apache went, but as though he now fully understood he swept like a shadow across the lawn, out through a side gate and down the pike. Jefferson on his cot in the cottage roused enough to mutter:

"Dat hawse a-hollerin'. I bettah get up an' see----" and then resumed his snore just where Apache's farewell had interrupted it. And out in the great lonely, silent night the little horse sped away like the wind. For a mile Beverly let Apache gang his ain gait, then she drew him down to the steady lope which he could keep up for hours without tiring.

The lines: "But there is a road from Winchester town, A good broad highway leading down," might have been written of the first five miles of the road Beverly was following, and which led to Front Royal. Those miles were covered in less than half an hour. But over thirty still lay ahead and some of them would have been pretty rough riding even in summer time and with the roads in good condition.