"Absolutely. n.o.body except myself had anything to do with the gate money."

The Princ.i.p.al's face, which had been grave before, took a yet sterner expression.

"I am sorry, Gwen. Very sorry and most concerned. I thought I could have trusted you entirely. It pains me beyond measure to find you have betrayed my confidence."

"But I didn't take that nine and six! I didn't, indeed! I don't know where it has gone; but I haven't got it! How can you accuse me of such a dreadful thing?" blurted out Gwen indignantly.

"You can't deny the deficit," returned Miss Roscoe icily. "There is the evidence of the checks and the cash to prove it. As you are not able to account for it, I can only draw my own conclusions. As it happens, I was this very morning made aware of the reason which must have prompted your most dishonourable act."

"What do you mean?" cried Gwen with a choke in her voice.

For answer Miss Roscoe handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened it nervously. It was a bill from Messrs. Parker & Sons, Gla.s.s and China Merchants, to Miss Gwen Gascoyne, for ten shillings "to account rendered", and written at the bottom were the words: "Your immediate settlement will oblige". It seemed such a bolt from the blue that Gwen turned all colours, and her hand trembled till she nearly dropped the paper.

"Ah, you may well look conscious, Gwen! I have just learnt the full history of this most deceitful business. I have had a letter from Mrs. Goodwin, telling me that her daughter had confessed her share of it, and as another bill for the broken china had arrived for you, directed under cover to Netta, she considered it best to forward it on to me, with an account of what had occurred, as it was only right that I should know about it. She is most pained that her daughter should have been even slightly implicated in such an affair, and Netta herself seems truly to regret countenancing the deception and screening you. I had a talk with her before school this morning. I cannot exonerate her, but she is at least sorry for her conduct. With this knowledge of your debt, Gwen, and your reasons for concealing it, of course I realize plainly enough why you have been foolish and wicked enough to take some of the gate money. No doubt you yielded to a desperate temptation; you had much better make a clean breast of it."

Gwen was trembling so greatly that she could hardly utter a reply.

Several times her white lips framed the words before she gasped out:

"I did break the china, and I owe the ten shillings for it, but I never took a penny from the satchel. I may be naughty, but I'm no thief!"

Miss Roscoe shook her head sadly.

"What's the use of persisting in denying a fact that's absolutely palpable?"

"But I didn't! Oh, I didn't!"

"It's little use arguing the matter at present, Gwen, if you take up this stubborn att.i.tude. If you think things over, you will see it is much better to confess. I have probably startled you by springing the news upon you that I was aware of your subst.i.tution of my china tea service. When you are calmer you will be more ready to acknowledge what you have done. Go to the little music room at the head of the stairs--it is not in use this morning--and stay there until I come or send for you. Reflect seriously upon what I have said, and make up your mind to be brave enough to tell me everything."

With feet like lead, and a head that throbbed and burned, Gwen walked upstairs. The little music room was unoccupied. It only contained a piano, a stool, and a chair, and on the last-named piece of furniture she sank down wearily. Her thoughts flew so rapidly through her brain that she could scarcely regulate them. She felt as if a net had been spread for her, and had entangled her unawares. First and foremost was the sense that Netta had betrayed her. Netta, who had promised at all costs to keep her secret, had basely revealed it. She saw how cleverly her old chum had managed to whitewash herself by making a confession and feigning penitence, and how much darker this act caused Gwen's own share in the matter to appear by comparison. Naturally Miss Roscoe viewed Netta as the one with the tender conscience, and Gwen as the unrepentant sinner.

"Why didn't I tell her myself that day I meant to, and got as far as the study?" wailed the unfortunate culprit. "Then I should have been spared all this!"

Why, indeed? How many of us mourn over our past follies and cowardices, bitterly regretting the wasted moment or the lost opportunity? Gwen's fault was indeed being visited heavily upon her shoulders. She had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. She felt keen resentment against Netta. It was a dastardly trick to have played upon her. Netta might at least have warned her that the bill was to be sent on to Miss Roscoe--then she could have been prepared for the worst. It was surely mere spite on the part of her friend, who, having quarrelled with her, was anxious to find some means of annoying her.

Netta had been jealous of her new-found appreciation in the Form, and had taken this opportunity of trying to humble her. The deficit in the gate fund filled Gwen with surprise. There seemed only one way of accounting for it, and that was so painful that she shrank from facing it. Lesbia had taken change out of the satchel, and that same evening Lesbia had acknowledged the possession of ten shillings, but had refused to reveal how she came by the money.

Gwen groaned as she remembered her sister's conscious looks and evasive replies. Could it actually be possible that Lesbia had abstracted this money? She was rather silly, flighty, and irresponsible, but she had always been truthful and honourable. No, it was surely absolutely foreign to her character! Then where had she obtained half a guinea to buy a new tennis racket? And what was the reason of her extreme embarra.s.sment? Gwen abandoned the question in despair.

"If she really did take it, I must shield her at any cost," she decided. "She'd get into such frightful trouble, and scolding Lesbia is like breaking a b.u.t.terfly. I can bear things better than she can.

But--oh, dear! What am I to say to Dad if he asks me? I can stand Miss Roscoe's wrath, but I can't face making Dad look sorry."

The Princ.i.p.al left Gwen until one o'clock to reflect upon her sins, then summoned her again to the study, and urged her in strong terms to confess.

"I will forgive you if you only acknowledge it, but if you persist in denying it, I shall have to go more deeply into the matter," she said sternly. "I cannot allow such things to happen at Rodenhurst. It is a very grave fault, Gwen. Do you wish me to send for your father?"

"No, no!" cried Gwen hastily.

"Then will you confess?"

"I can't! I didn't do it! Oh, I don't understand!" responded Gwen, torn in two between the desire to defend herself and the fear of involving Lesbia. She did not dare to tell Miss Roscoe that her sister had taken change from the satchel, yet by that circ.u.mstance only could she account for the loss.

"Miss Douglas is as distressed as I am," continued the Princ.i.p.al. "I was obliged to tell her, in order to explain your absence from your cla.s.ses. Here she comes now. Perhaps she will be able to persuade you better than I."

"Oh, Miss Roscoe," exclaimed Miss Douglas, entering the study with a hurried step and a heightened colour, "I have just made the most astounding discovery! I happened to look in my purse, and to my amazement and consternation I found half a sovereign which certainly ought not to be there. I am sure I know how I came by it. Yesterday, just before I went into the house to dress the girls who were to sing the Elizabethan madrigal, I bought a box of sweets from Lesbia Gascoyne. I gave her a two-shilling piece, and as she had no sixpences, she ran to Gwen to ask change for my florin. She came hurrying back, and handed me, as we both imagined, three sixpences. I put them in my purse without looking at them. Now I am quite sure that one of these supposed sixpences must in reality have been half a sovereign, given by mistake. I undoubtedly had no ten-shilling piece in my purse. The difference of giving half a sovereign in lieu of sixpence would be exactly the nine-and-six that was missing from Gwen's satchel. Let us exchange the two coins, and the deficit will be made up."

It was such a natural, simple, and self-evident explanation of the situation that its truth could not be doubted. Miss Roscoe heaved a sigh of intense relief.

"I am grateful to you beyond words, Miss Douglas," she returned.

"Gwen, I am most delighted that your honour is cleared, and regret I harboured so unjust a suspicion against you. I confess it was the affair of the broken china that prejudiced me in your disfavour. It supplied so strong a motive. Why didn't you come and tell me about that right away when if happened instead of trying to settle it in such a crooked fashion? It wasn't straight and square, was it? Have I heard the whole story?"

Gwen, who had not shed a tear before, was crying bitterly now. Miss Roscoe's present kindly tone hurt more than her former severity.

Almost in spite of herself the girl began to blurt put her version of how she had accidentally broken the tea service, had intended to pay for it at once, and how Emma had absconded with the money. The housemaid's part in the drama was news to Miss Roscoe, and she hastened to ask for particulars.

"This must be investigated immediately," she declared. "I shall send for Emma Dalton this afternoon. I happen to know that she has a place as parlour-maid at a house not far away. If I had heard of this I could not have given her a character. Indeed she deserves to be prosecuted for theft. I must write a note to her present mistress."

Miss Roscoe never let the gra.s.s grow under her feet. In this case she acted with her usual prompt.i.tude, and by two o'clock Emma, in much alarm, and weeping like a waterspout, was ushered into the study and confronted with Gwen and Netta, who were both summoned for the occasion.

"Now, Emma, this is a serious charge. Have you anything to say for yourself?" enquired Miss Roscoe, seating herself at her desk with the air of a magistrate about to try a case.

"I didn't pay the money at Parker's, and I don't deny it," sobbed Emma. "I meant to, but I saw a coat and skirt I wanted, so I thought I'd borrow it, and the bill might just wait for a bit. I've intended to go and settle every month when I got my wages, but it's never seemed the right time. I didn't know Parker's were pressing for it.

Oh, dear, I've been a bad girl!"

"You have indeed," said Miss Roscoe. "It was wrong of Miss Gascoyne to ask you to help her to deceive me, but worse for you to defraud her."

"It wasn't Miss Gascoyne that suggested sending back the broken china to Parker's and saying nothing about it; it was Miss Goodwin,"

declared Emma, pointing at Netta. "She planned the whole thing! Yes, I can tell you she did. She's a deeper one than the other. It was half her fault, I'll be bound!"

Netta's face was a study, especially as Miss Roscoe looked at her keenly, though she made no remark.

"I've brought the money with me," continued Emma, still sobbing, "if Miss Gascoyne will please take it and forgive me."

"You don't deserve any consideration, Emma," said Miss Roscoe.

"For the sake of my mother!" pleaded Emma. "Oh, don't prosecute me! It would brand me for life!"

"Don't send her to prison, please!" interposed Gwen.

"Well, we don't want to be too hard on you and ruin your life. Let it be a warning to you to be honest in future. I am sure Miss Gascoyne has no wish to prosecute you. I shall be obliged to let your mistress know about this, however. I gave you so good a character to her, that it is not fair she should remain in ignorance of so serious a slip.

She must be the judge whether she keeps you in her service or not."

"I'll go home to my mother and work at dressmaking," snivelled Emma as she prepared to depart. "Here's the money, Miss Gascoyne; I'm sorry I took it, and thank you kindly for not prosecuting."

Netta fled from the study the moment Miss Roscoe gave her leave to go.

She was anxious not to have to speak to Gwen, for she knew she had not behaved well towards her. Emma's unexpected accusation had given rather an awkward turn to the affair, and she had hardly come out of it with the credit she expected. Gwen lingered behind. She felt she could not leave without offering the apology which for seven long months she had wished to make.

"Please, Miss Roscoe, I'm most dreadfully sorry about all this. I know I ought to have come and told you at once when I knocked over the box of china," she blurted out abruptly. "I've been miserable the whole time about it."

"Well, Gwen, it's a lesson to keep square, isn't it? One little step from the straight road often sends us farther out of our way than we have any intention of going. I don't think you will descend to anything so underhand again, will you?"

"Never in all my life!" protested Gwen with energy.