Milly had been unhappy for days.

And now a great trouble fell upon all of us. It was as though a dense fog of doubt and suspicion had drifted in upon the Amen Corner, separating dear friends, so that we could not recognize each other’s faces through its dense folds, and our voices sounded false and far away as we called and groped for one another.

Our interview with Madame was very brief. I simply stated the fact of the disappearance of the money, which the other girls corroborated.

Cynthia began to enlarge on the statement, but Madame stopped her.

“I have not time now to investigate this unhappy affair,” she said. “Indeed, it is something which will probably require the assistance of a detective. Do not look so alarmed,” she added to Milly; “I happen to be acquainted with a gentleman—in fact, he is my lawyer—who has all the qualifications of a very clever detective. I will write, asking him to call, and to take charge of the case. He will keep it all very quiet. I am glad that you have come to me first of all, and I particularly request that you mention the fact of the robbery to no one.”

With this she dismissed us, and we went to breakfast a little late, feeling very important in the possession of a mystery. Winnie was the only one whom this mystery did not seem to elate. Cynthia, who sat beside me at table, was overflowing with glee.

“It is better than the most exciting story which Winnie ever told us,” she whispered to me. “Won’t it be fun to follow the unravelling of the crime. Of course the detective will be led off by false clues, and all that sort of thing, and the real thief will suffer all the torture of alternate fear of detection and hope of escape; but the toils will close gradually about the doomed individual. I shall not disclose my suspicions till toward the last. Oh! what fun it will be to watch the development of the drama. I should think, Tib, that you would write it up.”

“Your suspicions?” I repeated. “Do you really suspect any one?”

“Why, yes; don’t you?”

“No indeed!”

“Then all I’ve got to say is that you are a lamb. You think every one as innocent as yourself. Because you have the innocence of a lamb, you have a corresponding muttony intelligence.”

I was very indignant, but I did not show it. “Whom do you suspect?” I asked.

“That’s telling,” she replied, “and I said that I would not tell at this stage of the game.”

Later in the day, as I left the studio to return to our study-parlor, I met Winnie coming out. She had on her hat and cloak and carried my own. “Come and walk with me,” she said, “I feel all mugged up, and I need a good tramp. Milly is in there trying to take a nap. Adelaide and Cynthia are at recitation, and if you will come with me the poor child can get a little rest.”

As we marched around the school building together, I told her of my conversation with Cynthia. Winnie started.

“I don’t believe she really knows anything more than we do,” I said. “Cynthia loves to be important and aggravating. If she really knew anything she couldn’t keep it in.”

“Find out whom she suspects,” Winnie replied. “Cynthia is a real snake in the grass, and can do a lot of mischief by fastening the crime on an innocent person. I do not mean that she would do this wilfully, unless she had a strong motive for revenge, but she is unscrupulous as to the results of her actions, and loves to imagine evil and set forth facts in their most damaging light. Find out, by all means, whether she really knows anything likely to implicate any one.”

“Cynthia is a hard orange to squeeze,” I replied. “If she thinks I want to know, she will delight in tantalizing me.”

Winnie was silent for a moment. “Find out whether Cynthia slept soundly all night, or whether she heard or saw any one in the parlor. She might have heard me, you know, when I went out to look at the door.”

“Sure enough,” I replied. “If that is all I will get it out of her right away.”

We returned to our rooms. There was no one in the parlor. Winnie looked into the bedrooms. Only Milly sleeping peacefully, and Winnie stepped to the match box, took the key, and opened the safe. I do not know what she expected to find, but she looked disappointed.

“Did you think the thief would help himself again in broad daylight?” I asked.

“No,” Winnie replied shortly.

At that instant Cynthia entered, flushed, and as it seemed to me triumphant. “Mr. Mudge wants to see you, Winnie, in Madame’s private library,” she announced importantly.

“Who is Mr. Mudge?” Winnie asked.

“He is Madame’s lawyer. The keenest, shrewdest man you ever saw, with little gimletty eyes that bore the truth right out of you; and such a cross-questioner! If you have a secret, he knows it the minute he looks at you, and makes you tell it, in spite of yourself, the first time that you open your mouth. You need not try to keep your suspicions to yourself, they will be out before you can say Jack Robinson.”

Winnie gave a little sigh. “And you say he wants to see me?” she asked, rising with a palpable effort.

“Yes, he wants to question us each separately, to see if our testimony agrees, I suppose. He asked Madame, as I went in, if she had kept us apart since the robbery to guard against any—collision—I think that was the word!”

“Collusion,” I corrected.

“No matter; he meant that we might have hatched up a story between us, but Madame assured him that we were all honorable girls and incapable of such a thing.”

“Of course,” he replied, “unless they happen to know or suspect the culprit, and wish to shield her. In such cases, I have known the most religious young persons to lie like a jockey.”

Winnie left the room, throwing me a look of piteous appeal as she did so, which I understood to beg me to find out all I could from Cynthia. I rocked silently for a few moments, to disclaim all eagerness, and then said casually: “I don’t believe you would ever lie to save a friend.” This in a propitiating tone, adding to myself, “you would be much more likely to tell a lie to get one into trouble.”

Cynthia could not hear the thought, and she stretched herself luxuriously on the divan.

“No,” she replied, “I don’t make any pretense of being good; but I wouldn’t do that. Whenever the Hornets got into scrapes, I always told. Madame could depend on me for that. It is sneaky not to be willing to take the consequences. Besides, you get off a great deal easier if you own up; and others will be sure to throw the blame on you if you are not smart enough to get ahead of them.”

How I despised her. “I wonder if she thinks she is in danger of being called in question for this crime,” I thought, “and has made haste to accuse some one else.”

“You said you meant to keep your testimony until the end, so I suppose you did not tell Mr. Mudge your suspicions,” I remarked.

“Didn’t I just say that I did tell him?”

“Well, as they are only suspicions I presume he paid no attention to them. Lawyers generally tell witnesses to confine their testimony to facts.”

“But I had facts, suspicious facts; not ideas of my own, but important circumstantial evidence.”

“Indeed!” I purposely threw as much incredulity as I could into the way in which I uttered the word.

Cynthia sprang from the lounge, her eyes flashing with anger. “Yes, indeed; very awkward facts for your precious friend Winnie to explain away.”

“Winnie!” I exclaimed, and then laughed outright.

Cynthia was furious. “What do you say to this Tib Smith? I saw Winnie, with my own eyes, come into this room in her nightgown, with a lighted candle in her hand, carefully close all the doors, and——”

“Pooh! that’s nothing,” I replied cheerfully. “I was awake; I saw her, too. She merely crossed the room to see whether the corridor-door was locked.”

“Yes, and after that?”

“Came back to bed again.”

“There you are telling a fib to save your friend. She did not go back immediately. I was awakened by her softly closing my door, I got up and peeked through the keyhole, and I saw her open the safe and rummage around in it for quite a while, undoubtedly possessing herself of the money. Then she locked it and hurried back to her room looking as frightened as the criminal she was.”

“It is not so! It is a wicked, cruel falsehood!” Milly cried, springing into the room. I had forgotten her presence in the bedroom and Cynthia of course did not know of it.

Cynthia was taken aback for a moment. “I will tell you why I know it was so,” she said at length. “After Winnie went back to the room, and before any one else could have entered the parlor, I examined the safe and the money was gone.”

“That proves nothing,” I said; “it was probably taken before Winnie opened the safe.”

“Then she knew of the robbery in the morning before the rest of you, and never told.”

“You knew and never told either,” said Milly.

“I was waiting for the proper time,” replied Cynthia. “If Winnie did not take that money then she suspects who did. If she does not tell Mr. Mudge her suspicions, she is trying to shield the guilty person, and the—the shielder is as bad as the thief.”

“There is no proverb that says so,” I replied; “beside, you have proved nothing. If all that you say is true—and I don’t mind telling you, Cynthia Vaughn, that I am not entirely sure of that—if what you say is true, you are as deep in the mud as Winnie is in the mire.”

“You think Winnie a saint!” Cynthia sneered. “You don’t half know her. Before she came to room in the Amen Corner, and we were both in the Hornets Nest up under the eaves, she was the Queen Hornet of all. There was nothing which she would not dare to do, from letting down bouquets in her scrap-basket to the cadet band when they serenaded us, to bribing the janitor to let her slip out at night and buy goodies at the corner grocery for our spreads. She was a regular case, and her pet name all over the school was:

“We know all that,” I replied, “but there are some things which Winnie could not do. She could not tell a lie, and she could not steal.”

“I don’t know about that,” Cynthia continued coldly. “She comes from an uncertain sort of Bohemian ancestry. You know her mother was an actress and her father a playwright.”

Cynthia told this with great triumph, evidently thinking that we had never heard it.

“Madame told us,” I replied, “that Mrs. De Witt was a very lovely woman, who only acted in her husband’s plays; that she made it her life purpose to realize and explain her husband’s ideals: and that he wrote the part of the heroine especially to suit her, so that their creations were among the most charming that have ever been presented on the stage. They were devoted to one another, and when she died his heart was broken. He does not write plays any more, but articles for encyclopædias, which is an extremely respectable profession.”

“And you dared prejudice this Mr. Mudge against our own precious Winnie,” Milly continued. “You are just the meanest girl, Cynthia Vaughn, that ever lived! But you never can make any one believe anything against her. If, as Tib says, it lies between you two, we all know who is the more likely to have done it.”

Cynthia turned green. “Do you dare to accuse me?” she hissed.

“No, Milly; don’t do that,” I cried warningly, and the overwrought girl burst into a flood of tears and threw herself into my arms. “We accuse no one,” I said to Cynthia. “I trust that you have been equally cautious with Mr. Mudge.”

“What I may have said or may not have said is no business of yours,” Cynthia replied. “You have both of you insulted me beyond endurance, and from this time forth I shall never speak to any of you. I except Adelaide,” she added, after a moment’s consideration. “Adelaide is the only member of the Amen Corner who has treated me like a lady.”

“I think it would be pleasanter for you and for us if you would ask Madame to let you room somewhere else,” Milly suggested.

“I shall not go simply because you wish it,” Cynthia replied. “I shall stay to watch developments.”

“And, meantime, I believe you said we were to be deprived of the pleasure of any conversation with you,” I remarked, rather flippantly.

Cynthia turned her back upon me and from that time kept her word, maintaining a sullen silence with every one but Adelaide.

The bell rang for luncheon. The forenoon had seemed very long, and the afternoon was simply interminable. Milly left the room with me. Cynthia did not stir.

“Do you think she took it?” Milly asked, nodding back at the parlor.

“No,” I replied, “she is altogether too gay. She evidently enjoys the investigation. If she were the culprit she would be constrained, nervous, averse to having the affair examined.” I stopped suddenly, realizing how exactly this description fitted Winnie.

“Adelaide believes,” Milly said slowly, “that it was some sneak thief from outside the house. Have you looked about in the studio for any suspicious circumstances?”

I replied that I would do so after dinner, and then, as we passed into the dining-room together, the subject was dropped.

Winnie came to the table late and passed me a note, which I read beneath my napkin.

“Mr. Mudge wants to question you next. You are to meet him in Madame’s parlor immediately after luncheon. Hurry and finish, so that I can have a minute with you before you see him.”

I bolted my dinner, and Winnie sat silently staring before her, eating nothing. We left the dining-room five minutes before the conclusion of the meal, bowing as we passed Madame’s table, as was our custom when we wished to be excused before the others. Madame’s attention was absorbed by the teacher with whom she was conversing, and we passed out unhindered.

“What did you find out from Cynthia?” Winnie asked, as we walked toward the Amen Corner. “Does she suspect any one?”

“Yes,” I replied. “She is perfectly absurd. It is just as you said; she insists on fastening the crime on a perfectly innocent person.”

Winnie drew in her breath. “One of us, I presume?”

“Yes, Winnie dear. But,” I hastened to add, for she grew suddenly deadly pale, “she can do no harm; her suspicions are too manifestly impossible.”

“I don’t know,” Winnie chattered; “the reputation of many an innocent person has been blasted by mere circumstantial evidence. What does Cynthia know? What has she told?”

“That she saw you go to the safe in the night.”

“Me? Then I am the one whom she suspects, and not—you are sure she saw no one else?” Winnie laughed a long, joyous laugh. “I can stand it, Tib,” she said, “I can stand it. It’s too good a joke.”

“Of course,” I said, “no one can prove anything against you. But did you go to the safe? I didn’t see you do so.”

Winnie’s face clouded. “Yes, I looked in to see if everything was right. Mr. Mudge asked me if I had opened the safe during the night. He said that some one of us had been seen to do it, but he led me to suppose that he suspected some one else. I knew that he had his information from Cynthia, and I was afraid she had seen some one else. I mean—” and here Winnie corrected herself with some confusion—“I was afraid that she might have taken me for some other person, and I was very glad to acknowledge that I was the one who had opened the safe. I don’t think that Mr. Mudge believes that I am the culprit, for he smiled at me in a very friendly way.”

“How could he believe such a thing?” I asked. “It is perfectly nonsensical.”

“But if he does not suspect me, his suspicions will probably fasten on some one else. On you, for instance, or Adelaide,—and I would rather be the scapegoat than have any annoyance come to the rest of you.”

We had reached the Amen Corner, and had just opened the study-parlor door. Winnie gave a little cry of surprise. The door into the studio was open and a strange man stood looking at the broken lock.

Why, Mr. Mudge!” Winnie exclaimed, recovering herself, “excuse me for crying out, but really I did not expect to see you here.”

“I presume not,” the gentleman replied dryly. “Under other circumstances such intrusion would be unwarrantable, but I presume you understand that in a case like this we must question not only human witnesses but the place itself, and often our most valuable testimony is of a circumstantial character. This broken lock, for instance, would seem to prove that the thief entered through the studio.”

“Oh! that,” I cried, “proves nothing; it has been broken this long while—since the very beginning of the term.”

Winnie clasped my hand tightly, and I understood that she did not wish her escapade with the sliding trunk explained.

“Are you sure of that?” Mr. Mudge asked, looking slightly disappointed. “Even if the lock was not broken on the night of the robbery, the fact still remains that an entrance was practicable here at that time.”

“Why, of course!” I exclaimed. “It must have been the man who looked in at the transom.”

“What man?” asked Mr. Mudge; and I told the story of the appearance the night before. Winnie came forward impulsively, as though she wished to interrupt me, then seemed to change her mind and walked to the window, standing with her back to us.

“And why is it,” asked Mr. Mudge, “that neither Miss Cynthia nor Miss Winnie have mentioned this very suspicious circumstance?”

“I was not in the room when it happened, I did not see the man,” Winnie replied, without turning her head.

“This thief may have made an earlier attempt which was foiled,” Mr. Mudge continued. “It seems to me a little careless that you did not report the fact of the broken lock when you first discovered it, and have the fastening mended.”

Winnie’s eyes shone with suppressed amusement. “You think, then, Mr. Mudge, that some one from the outside committed the burglary? I am very glad that you have renounced the idea that any member of this school could have been guilty of such a thing.”

“My dear young lady,” replied Mr. Mudge, “I never indulge in preconceived ideas, but I give every possibility a hearing. I have nearly completed my examination of the locale, but must ask one trifling favor. Will you kindly lend me all your keys?”

“You don’t mean to say that you are going through all our things?” I exclaimed, aghast at the thought that the secret of the commissary must now be disclosed.

“A mere matter of form,” he murmured, extending his hand with persuasive authority. Winnie delivered her one key promptly, saying, “I will go and tell the other girls.”

“Quite unnecessary,” Mr. Mudge replied. “I have a pass key which opened Miss Adelaide’s capacious trunk. I have shaken out all her furbelows and tried to fold them again as well as I could, but I fear that the gowns with trains were a little too difficult for me. Miss Milly’s bureau drawers were in a wild state of mix: ribbons, laces, gloves, hair crimpers, dried-up cake, perfumery, jewelry, chewing-gum, love letters (innocent ones from other young ladies), a manicure set, a bonnet pulled to pieces, a box of Huyler’s, fancy work, dressmaker’s and other bills (which I have taken the liberty to borrow for a day or two), dancing slippers and German favors, a tin box containing marshmallows and a bottle of French dressing, menthol pencil, pepsum lozenges for indigestion, box of salted almonds, bangles, sachet, photograph of Harvard foot-ball team, notes to lectures on evidences of Christianity, silver bonbonnière containing candied violets, programmes of symphony rehearsals, caramels and embroidery silks gummed together, a handsome book of etchings converted into a herbarium or pressing book for botany class, and strapped together by buckling elastic garters around it; fine Geneva watch, out of order; match box containing specimens of live beetles, which I fear I released; pair of embroidered silk stockings, in need of mending; a diary, disappointing since it contains but two entries; packet of letters from home, tied with corset lacing (these I have borrowed), packet of ditto from a certain ‘Devotedly yours, Stacey, F. S.’ tied with blue ribbon—these are of no interest to me and I will not violate their secrets; badge of the Kings’ Daughters, button of West Point cadet, a fan bearing some autographs, a mouldy lemon, a dream book, etc., etc. The more I tried to examine her affairs the more confused I became, and I finally dumped them all out on the floor and then shoveled them back again. I don’t believe she will ever suspect that they have been touched.”

I laughed, but Winnie looked uneasy. “I think, sir,” she said, “that it is hardly honorable to carry away Milly’s private letters.”

“Any objection to having me read yours?” he asked sharply.

“None at all,” Winnie replied, at the same time handing him her little writing desk, “but with Milly the case is different. I do not think Mr. Roseveldt will like it.”

“Mr. Roseveldt will understand the necessity of the case,” Mr. Mudge replied.

“Have you looked through Cynthia’s things?” I asked.

“Yes, first of all. Everything in admirable order. She sets you other young ladies an example in point of neatness. And now, Miss Smith, I will thank you to give me the key to that small, old-fashioned trunk under your bed. It is the only one which my pass key will not fit; the lock has gone out of date.”

“Any one but a detective could have opened it without a key,” I replied, somewhat snappishly, “if they had had the penetration to discover that the hinges are broken. You simply swing the lid around this way.”

“Dear, dear, and so we keep a restaurant, do we? I believe I now understand the slight trepidation which you manifested on being requested to deliver up your keys. Reassure yourself. I am retained to unravel but one mystery; any others which may tumble into my possession during the search will be as safe as though buried in the grave. I believe this is all, as far as the rooms are concerned. If Miss Smith will accompany me now to the library, I will take her personal deposition.”

Mr. Mudge was in the main kind. He did not alarm me in the least, and asked but few questions.

“Have you reason to suspect any one?”

“No.”

“Very good. Did you see any one in the parlor the night of the robbery?”

“Yes, Winnie.”

“But you did not suspect her when you discovered that the money was gone?”

“No, Winnie was honest and open as the day; it was impossible that she could take it.”

“Hum, your parlor-mate, Miss Vaughn, does not share your opinion of your friend. Do you know of any reason for the coolness which apparently exists between them?”

“Yes, Winnie has frankly given Cynthia her opinion of certain underhanded performances of hers.”

“Such as——”

“I am not a tale-bearer.”

“In this examination, Miss Smith, you will please answer all questions put to you—and abstain from flippancy. Believe me, I ask nothing from idle curiosity; nothing which does not have its bearings on this case.”

“Cynthia is continually doing things that exasperate Winnie. She put her muff between the sheets at the foot of Milly’s bed. When Milly slipped her foot down and felt the fur she thought that it was a rat or some wild animal, and she nearly shrieked herself into convulsions. Cynthia laughed till she almost cried, but Winnie was raging with indignation, and gave her such a scoring that Cynthia has never forgiven her.”

“Is that the only source of unpleasantness between them?”

“No; such affairs are always coming up,” and I related the trick of the costumes, which has been told in the preceding volume. “And lately,” I added, “Cynthia has been very obsequious to Milly, and they have been quite intimate. Winnie has not approved of the friendship. She told Milly that she did not believe Cynthia was sincere, but did not succeed in separating them. Cynthia surmised that Winnie was not pleased, and taunted her with being jealous, and Winnie let them proudly alone, until something happened at Milly’s dressmaker, when she interfered again, declaring that Cynthia was going too far, and that Milly needed some one to protect her.”

“What happened at the dressmaker’s?”

“I don’t know exactly. Milly went to the dressmaker’s rooms last week to have a dress fitted, and Winnie was with her. She came back very much displeased, and had a long talk with Cynthia in her bedroom. As she came out we heard her say, ‘Downright dishonorable; as bad as stealing;’ and Cynthia called after her: ‘I’ll pay you for this; we shall see who is a thief, Miss Winifred De Witt.’”

“Hum!” said Mr. Mudge. “The importance of these little tiffs between girls must not be exaggerated. They have probably made it all up by this time.”

“Indeed they have not,” I replied.

“Can you give me the address of Miss Milly’s dressmaker? On second thought, it is of no consequence. I have it on this bill: ‘To Madame Celeste, Fifth Avenue: For tailor-made costume in dark green cloth, trimmed with sable, sixty-seven dollars.’”

“But that was Cynthia’s dress,” I said.

“It is charged here to Miss Milly Roseveldt.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, a light beginning to break in.

“And you never suspected what it was that occurred at the dressmaker’s which displeased Miss Winnie?”

“Never, until this moment. Milly has cried a great deal, but she would not tell her trouble, even to Adelaide.”

“Very well. I will step across to Madame Celeste. No; on reflection I will speak to Miss Milly first. Will you kindly ask her to come to me?”

“Then this is all you wish to ask me?”

“Thank you, yes. No, one question more. Can you tell me the exact time at which Miss Winnie visited the parlor last night? The young lady herself was very exact on that point.”

“That is natural!” I replied, “for the great clock at the end of the corridor was striking twelve as she came back to the bedroom. I thought it never would stop.”

“That tallies also with Miss Cynthia’s testimony. She states that she saw Miss Winnie go to the safe a few minutes before twelve; that she, Miss Cynthia, lay still until the clock struck the quarter, and then examined the safe, finding your money gone.

“Inference (since Miss Winnie apparently noticed nothing out of the way when she looked in): if neither of these young ladies took it, the robbery must have been committed during that fifteen minutes.”

“That seems hardly possible,” I said, “since Cynthia, Winnie, and I were all awake during that time.”

“It is possible, though not probable. Cynthia’s bedroom door, opening into the parlor, was closed. Are you quite certain that you did not fall asleep before the quarter struck. Did you hear it?”

“No, I am not at all certain.”

“Very good. Then if the thief were standing in the studio waiting for his opportunity, he might have slipped in during that time. Is there any way in which we can ascertain whether any one was in the studio between twelve and a quarter past?”

“I know of no way,” I replied. “There was no one in the studio at ten o’clock when I looked in.”

“Very good; the known quantities are being gathered in, the unknown ones defined; the problem becomes simpler. I think we will be able to solve it soon. Meantime, if any new developments appear, be so good as to report them to me.” He rose and bowed stiffly in token of dismissal. I hurried to our rooms and found Adelaide and Winnie.

“Where is Milly?” I cried; “Mr. Mudge wants to see her next.”

“Milly has gone to Madame Celeste’s,” Adelaide answered. “She wanted to pay a bill.”

“But she had no business to leave the house until she had given her testimony,” I exclaimed. “I wonder why Madame gave her permission.”

“I don’t think Milly asked it,” Adelaide replied; “and I fancy Milly was not at all anxious to have this interview with the detective and merely caught at Madame Celeste as a way of escape. She is not often in such a twitter of promptness in settling her accounts; besides, now I think of it, all her money was taken. How could she pay Celeste?”

Winnie looked up from the table on which her elbows were resting, her head grasped firmly between her hands as though it ached. She took no part in the conversation until I remarked:

“Well, if Milly thinks to escape Mr. Mudge by running away to Madame Celeste’s she is badly taken in, for he is going right over there.”

“What?” Winnie almost shrieked. “Does he suspect that she has anything to do with this miserable business?”

“Madame Celeste? No, but he wants to find why Cynthia had her dress charged to Milly’s account.”

“O Tib, Tib, why did you ever mention that?” Winnie groaned; “you don’t know what mischief you have made.”

“How did you know it, anyway?” Adelaide asked. “This is the first I have heard of the matter.”

“I did not know it,” I replied. “Mr. Mudge was looking over the papers he took from Milly’s drawer and he came across this bill for Cynthia’s dark green cloth dress, charged up against Milly, and I—I just happened to say that was Cynthia’s dress——”

“If you could only have just happened to hold your tongue,” Winnie exclaimed, springing from her seat and pacing the floor. “Adelaide,” she added, “won’t you go to Mr. Mudge and keep him busy hearing your testimony until Milly has time to get away from Madame Celeste’s. That woman is a match for a lawyer even, but if he happens to meet Milly there she will be frightened into anything. I knew there would be trouble when Mr. Mudge took that bill.”

“Of course I will go, if you would like to have me do so,” Adelaide replied, rising, “but really, Winnie, I can’t say that I at all comprehend the situation.”

Winnie gave each of us a look of despair. “I didn’t intend you should,” she said, “but since ignorance bungles in this way I will explain. Milly has very weakly been getting things for Cynthia and allowing them to be charged on her bills. I have remonstrated with her and she has promised to do so no more. I told her how wicked it would be to send these accounts in to her father as her own, and she has not done that. She has kept them separate, intending to settle them whenever Cynthia paid up.”

“I don’t see why Cynthia could not have taken her debts on her own shoulders instead of entangling Milly,” Adelaide remarked.

“Simply because Cynthia has no credit. Madame Celeste would not trust her for a penny, while she would let Milly run up any amount. Well, either Cynthia has paid or Milly has obtained the money in some other way. One thing is certain, she has it and she has gone down to pay Madame Celeste; anxious, as you may well imagine, to get her feet out of the quicksand and not by any mischance to have that bill sent home to her father. Now, don’t you see that if Mr. Mudge ascertains that Milly has a secret of this kind, that the next thing he will do will be to suspect that Milly stole the money in order to extricate herself from this trouble.”

“Impossible,” Adelaide exclaimed. “Milly has only to tell where the money came from.”

“And I have asked her and she will not tell. It is all right, she assures me, but she can not or will not tell how.”

“Silly goose! I will get it out of her,” said Adelaide. “And meantime there is no need whatever that she should be even suspected. She did not do it—and suspicion might as well start out from the first on the right track. I will go at once to Mr. Mudge, and enlighten his benighted mind.”

“What is your theory, Adelaide?” I cried, but not before the door had closed behind her.

“Don’t stop her,” Winnie pleaded. “Time is precious; Mr. Mudge may have tired waiting for Milly and have gone. No matter what her theory is, so long as it takes suspicion from Milly. I had great hopes that Cynthia would succeed in making him think I had done it.”

“He did have you in his mind at one time,” I said. “He said, ‘If neither Miss Winnie nor Miss Cynthia took it, the robbery must have been committed during the fifteen minutes between their visits to the safe!’”

“He said that?” Winnie inquired, with interest.

“Yes, and Winnie, the thing is plain to me—I believe Cynthia took that money.” Winnie shook her head.

“Now just listen to my reasoning. Milly has been insisting that Cynthia shall pay up. We know that Cynthia has received no money lately. She stole it and gave it to Milly, and made her promise not to tell who gave it to her. It’s as plain as the nose on my face. And then,” I continued triumphantly, warming to my conclusion, “she artfully throws the suspicions of the robbery on you, as a revenge for the straightforward talk you gave her. Haven’t I ferretted it all out well? Isn’t it the most likely way in the world that it could have happened? Are you not perfectly convinced?”

“It is the most likely story,” Winnie replied, “and so very feasible does it seem that even I am almost convinced, although I know positively that it did not happen that way, even Cynthia must not be unjustly suspected.”

“How do you know it?”

“Because Cynthia told the truth when she said that the money was stolen when she looked into the safe. It was gone when I looked in.”

“Winifred! But you told Mr. Mudge that it was there.”

“I told Mr. Mudge that I found my money just as I left it. It was not touched at all, you know; but yours, Milly’s, and a part of Adelaide’s, all that was stolen, was already taken.”

“But Mr. Mudge did not understand you so.”

“That is his own fault.”

“Did you want him to misunderstand the situation?”

“Apparently, Tib; but don’t ask so many questions. Let him proceed on the assumption that the robbery was committed in that fifteen minutes. If any innocent person is apparently implicated, I will confess. Meantime, you are shocked to find that I am delaying the course of justice in order to keep suspicion from myself.”

“A thousand times no; you could never act a lie unless it was to shield some one else. Was it to shield Milly, and how?”

“Tib, it breaks my heart—I can’t tell you—I love her so—I love her—”

A great fear came over me; Milly had taken the money and Winnie knew it. But Milly had lost all her money, and yet that was a very transparent subterfuge. What more natural than that the thief would pretend to be an innocent sufferer and steal from herself? And Milly knew before she looked that there was nothing in her purse. I asked relentlessly, “Was Milly at the safe during the night at some time earlier than you and Cynthia?”

“Milly will not admit that she was,” Winnie replied, her manner hardening as she realized that she had not quite disclosed her secret, and her determination to guard it returning with redoubled force.

“Then why do you suspect it?”

“I do not suspect it.”

The fixed despair in her eyes added the words, “I know it,” as plainly as if she had spoken them.

“Did you see Milly take the money?” I insisted. “Was that what wakened you? And is that the reason why you wish it to appear that the safe was intact at the time you examined it?”

Winnie covered her face with her hands and did not reply. I felt that I had divined the truth. A solemn silence fell upon us both for a few minutes, then Winnie straightened herself with the old resolute look in her face.

“Tib,” she said, “I have told you nothing. You know nothing from your own personal observation. Whatever you may think is purely guess-work, and you have no right to imagine evil against Milly. She is the sweetest and dearest girl in our set. She is innocent and unsuspicious, and so kind-hearted that she is easily led. She has gone wrong in some things, terribly wrong; but she is the youngest of us all and it is Cynthia’s fault, and I believe she is trying desperately to get straight again. As for this terrible thing, you must not suspect her of it. It is your duty, on the contrary, to try to turn the attention of Mr. Mudge in some other direction.”

As she spoke, Cynthia opened the door and Winnie relapsed into silence. I felt a strange, dizzy sensation, as if the foundations were being removed. The more I tried to puzzle out the affair the more bewildered I became. There was Cynthia, who believed that Winnie was the culprit, or at all events was striving to make Mr. Mudge believe so; and when I weighed the evidence the case was strongly against her. Here again was Winnie, who seemed to believe that it was Milly, and I knew that the evidence which could shake her faith in Milly must be overwhelming. I had made it seem entirely clear to myself that Cynthia had done it, and in a blind, unreasoning way, although Winnie’s testimony had showed that this could not possibly be, the suspicion, once started, grew and strengthened. I watched her as she sat working out algebra problems with a disagreeable smile on her face—and I said to myself over and over again, “You did it, and the truth will come out at last.”

Evening was falling when Adelaide returned from her interview with Mr. Mudge.

“Has not Milly returned yet?” she asked, as she entered the door.

“No,” replied Winnie. “Has Mr. Mudge gone to interview Celeste?”

“No, he is off on another scent. He has gone to interview Professor Waite.”

“What does Professor Waite know about the matter?” I asked in surprise.

“Nothing. It only shows the imbecility of these detectives who insist on pursuing every impossible as well as every possible clew.”

“Tell us all about it,” I entreated. “I should like to know how it was possible to drag Professor Waite into the business.”

“Why, through the transom, of course,” Adelaide replied, and we all laughed at the absurd suggestion. “The first question that Mr. Mudge asked was, ‘Have you any theory or suspicions in regard to this affair, Miss Armstrong?’ I answered that I had determined from the first that it was the act of some sneak-thief, who had watched us, through the transom, put the money into the safe.”

Again Winnie made an involuntary movement as though about to speak, but restrained herself, and Adelaide continued:

“I told him about the face at the transom in the Rembrandt hat, and he asked me if it was Professor Waite. I told him that I thought not. The head looked smaller and the hat came lower down over the eyes and at the back than it would have done on the professor. Besides, the professor has that little pointed Paris beard, and this face had a smooth chin. I saw it plainly for a moment in profile. Mr. Mudge did not seem to be satisfied and made me admit that I might have been mistaken. Professor Waite’s beard is such a very immature affair. Then he asked me how an outsider could have introduced himself into the studio without coming in at the front door, which is guarded by the janitor, and coming up the grand staircase past Madame’s room and twenty other rooms, all occupied, and likely to have their doors open in the evening. I told him that there were two other ways: the fire escape——”

“Both the corridor window and our own were locked on the inside,” I interrupted.

“He said he found it so—and agreed with me that the turret staircase was the more likely entrance. I explained that the spiral staircase in the turret was built especially for the use of the physician when this part of the building was the infirmary, and that in order to quarantine it from the rest of the school, there were no entrances to the turret on any of the other floors—that it led directly from the studio to the street, and that no one used it but Professor Waite, who kept the key of the outer door; that he might have negligently left this door unlocked, and in that case a tramp could easily have slipped in, and as there was no communication with any other room he would have found himself, on reaching the end of the staircase, in the studio and in front of our door. Mr. Mudge then questioned me as to Professor Waite’s habits. Did he usually spend his evenings in the studio, and were we in the habit of visiting back and forward in a friendly manner through the door with the broken lock? This made me very indignant. Such a thing, I assured Mr. Mudge, would be contrary to the rules of the school, and to the instincts of any self-respecting girl. The door had never been opened since the lock was first broken, and even Tib, whose duties required her to be in the studio during half of the day, always entered it by the corridor door. As to Professor Waite, he did not board in the house. I believed he belonged to several artist clubs—the Salmagundi, the Kit Kat, and others—and that he probably spent his evenings there, or in society, or at his boarding house around the corner; at all events, he never painted in the studio in the evening, for I had heard Tib say that the lighting was not sufficient for night work. There was a rumor, too, that Professor Waite was very popular in society; but that Tib could inform Mr. Mudge much more explicitly than I on all matters relative to the professor’s habits, as I had never interested myself in him, and what he did or did not do was of no manner of consequence to me. This seemed to amuse Mr. Mudge very much, but he replied politely enough that he had never for an instant imagined that a young artist, like the professor, could be anything else than an object of supreme indifference to any right-minded young lady, and then he proceeded to question me more closely than ever. Though Professor Waite did not usually spend his evenings in the studio, did he not occasionally drop in on his way home? Had we ever heard him ascending or descending the turret stairs at about midnight, for instance. I was obliged to confess that I knew of one instance when he had visited the studio at that hour, for I had met him on the staircase; that he was returning from an evening spent in sketching at the life-class of the Kit Kat Club, and he had run up to the studio to leave his drawings and materials before returning to his room at the boarding house. That it was very possible that he did this frequently. Then, of course, he asked me how it happened that I was going down that staircase at such an unseemly hour on the occasion when I met Professor Waite, and I had to confess all that maddening Halloween business.”

We all shouted, for this was a particularly painful subject with Adelaide. It was the one practical joke which we had ever had the heart to play on our queen.

Such grave consequences attended this Halloween trick that it is possibly worth while for me to turn aside from the direct record of the robbery and devote a chapter or two to a confession of one of our most serious scrapes.

It had been suggested by Cynthia and approved and carried out by Winnie before the days of the breaking off of their friendship. Cynthia had a way of suggesting plots for less cautious people to carry out, whereby they burned their fingers like the cat in the fable of the chestnuts.

The Amen Corner had conducted itself with praiseworthy propriety after the opening escapade of the season—that of the roller-coaster trunk—for the space of a few weeks. But when Halloween came we all felt the need of what Winnie called an explosion. We had been too preternaturally goody-goody, and the escape valve must be opened. We decided to celebrate the eve of “antics and of fooleries” befittingly, and we arranged to bob for apples, to snatch raisins from burning alcohol, thereby ascertaining the number of our future lovers.

We poured molten lead into water, striving to ascertain the occupation of our future husbands from the forms which it took. Adelaide’s emblem was something like a letter A, and we all declared that it was a perfect easel and quite wonderful; but when we threw apple peelings over our heads, Milly’s broke into two sections, remotely resembling a scrawling C and a W. Milly herself was the first to recognize the letters and to blushingly declare that of course it was too absurd, it could not mean Carrington Waite.

Adelaide’s younger brother Jim was attending the cadet school in the city. He admired Milly exceedingly, as did many of the cadets who had met her at a fair given at Madame’s, the previous year, for the benefit of the Home of the Elder Brother. Stacey Fitz Simmons, drum major of the cadet band, and the best dodger and runner of the school foot-ball team, was also her devoted admirer. The button which Mr. Mudge had discovered in Milly’s bureau drawer was not from a West Point uniform but from Stacey’s; and the foot-ball team was not the Harvard—but the Cadet Eleven. We all tried to find emblems in the molten lead, or initials in the apple parings, suggesting the cadets, but Milly would none of them.

There was a Mr. Van Silver, much favored by Milly’s family, a caller at their cottage at Narragansett Pier, whom Adelaide had met while visiting Milly the previous summer. He was principally remarkable for owning a coach and four-in-hand, and as he had on one occasion invited Adelaide to a seat on the box, it was a little fiction of Milly’s that Mr. Van Silver was her humble slave. But we were all innocent in the ways of flirtations and, with the exception of Milly, heart whole and fancy free, and it was really a difficult thing to conjure up imaginary lovers—for the occasion.

The pièce de resistance of the evening was the trick played upon Adelaide. We planned on our programme that just as the clock struck the hour of midnight we would all try the experiment of walking downstairs backward with a lighted candle in one hand and a looking-glass in the other. Of course it would never do for the procession to file down the grand staircase in front of Madame’s rooms, but the spiral staircase, secluded in the turret, offered peculiar advantages for the scheme. It communicated with no other floor, only Professor Waite had the key to the door at the foot, and he was never in the studio at night. So the girls believed, until I informed them that he always came in for a few moments on Wednesday nights to leave his sketches made at the Kit Kat—and Halloween that year happened to fall upon a Wednesday.

“So much the better,” said Cynthia. “We will make Adelaide head the procession, and she will see Professor Waite’s face in her mirror. It will be too good a joke for anything, for she can’t bear the sight of him since she made that unfortunate speech when she saw him standing in the open door and thought it was Winnie en masquerade.”

“I am afraid it will be twitting on facts,” I said; “for I more than half suspect that Professor Waite admires Adelaide as much as she detests him. He has asked me more than once why she does not join the drawing class—and even suggested that I should induce her to pose for the portrait class. He said her profile was purely classical, and that she took naturally the most superb poses of any girl that he had ever met.”

“So much the better,” Cynthia declared. “It will be the best joke of the season. What time does he usually arrive?”

“He said, in telling one of the class, that he always leaves the Kit Kat at half past eleven, and reaches the street door of the turret on the stroke of twelve.”

“Delightful!” exclaimed Winnie. “Fortune favors our plans. What fun it will be!”

It was thought best not to admit Milly into our confidence, for fear that she could not keep the secret. All went well. We played our tricks and Winnie told ghost stories, but it seemed as if midnight would never come. At one time we fancied we heard a noise in the turret and we looked at each other apprehensively. Had anything happened to bring Professor Waite back earlier than usual, and would our plans miscarry, after all? At ten minutes before twelve we organized the procession. Milly was timid and persisted in being in the middle. To our disgust Adelaide refused to lead. “Winnie proposes it; let Winnie go first,” she said resolutely.

“All right,” Winnie assented, after a thoughtful pause. “I will if Adelaide will come next.”

Cynthia and I looked at her inquiringly. We did not quite see how this would answer.

“Tib, let’s go and see if Snooks is in bed and the coast is clear,” Winnie suggested. “It’s a pity that we can’t get into the studio through this door, but that chest is too heavy for us to push aside.”

Winnie and I reconnoitered, and as we opened the door into the turret she told me her plan.

“I will lead rapidly and when I get to the bottom will scud into that little closet under the stairs where they keep the lawn mower, so that Adelaide will be virtually at the head. We must start right away, so as to give me a chance to get into my haven of refuge before Professor Waite arrives.”

We all tiptoed into the studio and lighted our candles there, after we had closed the corridor door. We had had quite a time collecting mirrors. Adelaide and Milly possessed handsome silver-backed hand-glasses. Winnie carried a pretty toilet mirror with three folding leaves. I had a work box with looking-glass inside the lid, and Cynthia had unscrewed the large mirror from her bureau. We were all giggling and shivering when Winnie, our marshal, gave the signal for the start in the following order: Winnie, Adelaide, Milly, myself, and Cynthia bringing up the rear.

The steps winding around the central pillar were narrower at one end than the other and it was rather difficult to tread them backward. The fall wind blew through the slits of unglazed windows and extinguished my candle. Winnie, in her haste to get to the bottom, fell, extinguished hers also, and hurt herself quite severely, but she had determination enough to pick herself up again and limp on. Suddenly there came a strong draught of air and there was a halt in our march. Milly whispered that she could hear voices, then Adelaide, who was a little way in advance, shrieked and came running up the stairs. We were all huddled together in a jam. Cynthia was shouting with laughter, Milly crying with fright, Adelaide choking and incoherent with indignation.

“Hurry, hurry!” she cried, pushing us back; “he is coming; he is just behind me.”

We were only a few steps from the studio and we all bundled in—but in the confusion Milly had dropped her candle, and the light Mother Hubbard wrapper was all in a blaze.

Cynthia rushed wildly out of the room. I have no recollection of what I did, but Adelaide fought the flames with her hands; but she would never have conquered them, and our darling might have died a cruel death in torturing flames, if Professor Waite had not dashed into the room, wrapped her in a Persian rug, and extinguished the fire. Strange to say, she was entirely unhurt. Only her beautiful blond hair was singed, and that was afterward attributed by her friends to an injudicious use of the curling irons. Adelaide’s hands were badly burned and Professor Waite bathed them in oil, while an older, serious looking man, who had followed Professor Waite, whom we only noticed at this stage of the proceedings, wrapped them in his white silk muffler. Then Cynthia appeared at the door with a white face and a small water pitcher, and we were able for the first time to laugh in a hysterical way. Fortunately, no one had heard us, and we slipped back to the Amen Corner.

Milly was awe-stricken by the peril through which she had passed, but there was a strange, happy look upon her face which I did not understand until, as I tucked her away in bed, she pulled me down to her and whispered in my ear:

“He held me in his arms, Tib; for one heavenly minute he held me close, close in his arms. I felt the hot breath of the flames, but I did not care. I was willing to die, I was so happy——”

“My poor little girl,” I said, as I kissed her, “you must not let yourself care for Professor Waite, for he does not——”

“I know,” she replied, “he loves Adelaide; he can’t help it any more than I can help——”

“Hush,” I said, “this is all foolishness; put it right out of your little head. You are only sixteen; you are not old enough to care for any one. You will laugh at this by and by.”

She shook her head solemnly. “I shall always remember, Tib—that for one heavenly minute he held me tight—so.” And she embraced her pillow with all her small might, nestling her hot cheek against it in a way which would have been absurd if it had not been so unspeakably pathetic.

Adelaide strode into the room at this juncture with the air of a tragedy queen.

“Thank Heaven, you are safe, Milly dear!” she said, pausing beside the bed, but her look was not one of pious thanksgiving. Her voice had a sharp sound, and a crimson spot flamed on her dark cheeks. “He dared to hold my hands in his,” she murmured, “and, worse still, to call me ‘noble girl,’ and his ‘poor child’; and he will think that I went down those stairs on purpose to see his face in my mirror. Oh, how I hate him, how I hate him!”