In order to understand the events which were happening at the Dower House we must go back for a period of some years in the history of the family at the Castle. The late owner, Squire Trevellyan, having lost his only child, had practically adopted his nephew L'Estrange Trevellyan as his heir. He had indeed other nephews and nieces, but they were the children of his sisters, and it seemed to him fitting that L'Estrange, the only one who bore the family name of Trevellyan, should inherit his Cornish estate. The young fellow was an immense favourite with his uncle and aunt, they regarded him in the light of a son, the Castle was considered his home, and they had even decided upon an alliance for him with the daughter of a neighbouring baronet. But in this matter L'Estrange had defied the wishes of the autocratic old squire, and, making his own choice, had wedded a lady of less aristocratic birth. His marriage caused a great coolness between himself and his uncle and aunt; his bride was not asked to the Castle nor openly recognized, and he was given to understand that he had seriously injured his chances of succession to the estate. His cousins, who had long been jealous of his prospects, were not slow to avail themselves of this opportunity, and did all they could to make mischief and to widen the breach.

Matters went on thus for about ten years, during which time, though Squire and Mrs. Trevellyan occasionally asked L'Estrange to the Castle, they still refused to have anything to do with his wife, and did not see either of his children. At the Squire's death there was great anxiety among the relatives to know how he had disposed of his property. When the will was read it was found that he had left the Castle and entire estate to his wife, with power to bequeath it as she wished, and equal money legacies to all his nephews and nieces; but at the end came a codicil revoking the former part of the will, leaving only small legacies to the other nephews and nieces, but a large sum to L'Estrange, and bequeathing the Castle and property to him after Mrs. Trevellyan's death. The relations, furiously angry to be thus cut out, disputed the validity of the codicil. There were many points in its disfavour. The lawyer who had drawn it up was dead, and of the two witnesses who had signed their names to it one was missing and the other dead. There was therefore not a solitary person left to vouch for it. The family decided to go to law, and in the case which followed the handwriting experts decided that the signature to the codicil was not genuine, giving it as their opinion that it had been forged by L'Estrange Trevellyan.

The case against L'Estrange looked extremely black, for he had been staying at the Castle at the time of his uncle's illness and death. In view of the decision in the case a criminal charge of forgery was laid against him, and a warrant issued for his arrest. Before it was out, however, he had disappeared—no one knew whither.

To Mrs. Trevellyan the evidence seemed overwhelming, and in spite of her great affection for her nephew, she believed him guilty. It had always been her great wish that the Castle and estate should pass to one who bore the name of Trevellyan, and at this dreadful crisis she offered to adopt L'Estrange's little son, and to bring him up as heir to the property. Her one condition was that she must have the child absolutely, and that his father and mother should not attempt in any way to obtain access to him. In his desperate circumstances L'Estrange had consented; the boy was handed over to his great-aunt, and had been brought up at the Castle without any remembrance of his own home and parents.

The affair had, of course, made a great stir in the neighbourhood, but as L'Estrange had not remained in the country to face a prosecution, and therefore no trial of the case had followed, opinions were divided as to his guilt. In the course of five years the excitement had died down, and though the story was well known at Pontperran it was regarded as the Trevellyan family skeleton, and best buried in oblivion. Miss Birks had tried to keep the matter from her pupils; they had a vague knowledge that Ronnie's father was unsatisfactory, but they had been able to glean no further details. In view, however, of the strange chain of events which had just transpired, Miss Birks gave Deirdre and Dulcie, in private, a hasty outline of the circumstances, telling them that Gerda was in reality the daughter of Mr. L'Estrange Trevellyan, and that from certain evidence which she had been able to collect she was confident of disproving the charge which had been brought against her father.

Though the chums were thus briefly in possession of their school-mate's secret, they felt there were many pieces in the puzzle which they could not yet fit together. When they went to bed that night they begged Gerda to give them a full and complete explanation. To their surprise she immediately consented; indeed, instead of keeping her old habit of reserve she seemed anxious to take them into her confidence and to pour her whole story into their listening ears.

"If you're Ronnie's sister you can't be Gerda Thorwaldson," said Dulcie. "I didn't know Ronnie had a sister. I thought he was an only child."

"There are just the two of us," replied Gerda. "I am nine years older than he is, so I've always felt almost like a mother to him. Shall I tell you everything? Quite from the beginning? Miss Harding will excuse us for talking to-night. When our terrible trouble came upon us Ronnie was only fifteen months old—such a darling! He could just walk and say little words. I have his photo inside my work-box. You can imagine the grief it was to part with him, our baby, who'd never been a day from us. Mother was very brave—she realized that she had to decide between Father and her boy, and of course she chose Father. We knew it was entirely for Ronnie's good. Mrs. Trevellyan would bring him up in the old family home as an English boy should be, and would make him her heir; and we could only take him from one foreign place to another, and give him nothing but poverty and a tarnished name. You know, of course, that my father was accused of having forged a codicil to his uncle, Squire Trevellyan's will. By a round of misfortune everything seemed to combine in his disfavour. One witness to the codicil was dead, the other was missing, and though advertisements were put in the papers offering a reward for news of his whereabouts he could not be found. Mr. Forster, the lawyer who had drawn up both the will and the codicil, was dead, so there was no evidence on Father's side, and the case went heavily against him.

"The codicil having been disproved, the public prosecutor stepped in and issued a warrant to arrest my father on a charge of forgery. In the circumstances, with no witnesses obtainable, it was not considered wise for him to stand the doubtful chance of a trial, and acting on the advice of his best friends, though very much against his own wishes, he quietly left the country. For nearly five years he, Mother, and I have lived together in various continental towns, constantly moving on, as we feared the foreign police might recognize the description circulated at the time of his escape and arrest him under an extradition warrant. For safety we changed our name at almost every place. I cannot express the wretched uncertainty and the misery of this hunted life, especially when we knew the charge to be so utterly false. There would have been only one worse evil—to see him wrongfully sentenced and sent to a convict prison. The dread of that possible horror we endured from day to day. Meantime Mother, though she would not confess it, fretted terribly at Ronnie's loss. As year after year went by, and she pictured him growing older, it became harder and harder for her to exist without hearing the least word about him.

"'If I had even one poor little snapshot photo it would comfort me,' she said once. 'It would show me my darling is well and happy and cared for in his new home.'

"Then an idea came to me. Though I had never been at Pontperran in my life I had often heard my father speak of the Dower House, and I knew it was close to the Castle. I begged to be sent to school there, for I thought I should find some opportunity of seeing Ronnie, and not only taking a photo of him, but sending first-hand news about him to Mother. I hoped also—but it seemed such a forlorn hope!—that if I were on the spot I might pick up some information that might throw a light on the case and help to clear my father's honour. There seemed little risk of my being detected, for Mrs. Trevellyan had never seen me—Aunt Edith, I ought to call her—and I meant to keep carefully out of her way.

"Mother jumped at my suggestion. I could see that the mere chance of news of Ronnie put fresh life into her, and after some persuasion Father agreed to let me go. I took the name of Gerda Thorwaldson, and the letters to Miss Birks, arranging for me to be received as a pupil, were written from Donnerfest, a little town in Germany. Mother brought me to London, and put me safely into the train for Cornwall. Then she used the opportunity of being in England to pay quiet visits to some of her own relations whom she had not seen for many years.

"My father had a friend, a man who believed in his innocence, and did his best to help him. This Mr. Carr took him a cruise on his yacht, and came to Cornish waters, tacking about the coast from Avonporth to Kergoff. By borrowing the yacht's dinghy, Father was able sometimes to land near Portperran and meet me for a few minutes. Of course it was a terribly risky thing to do, for he was liable to be arrested any moment that he set his foot on English soil; but he longed so much to see me, and, above all, to hear what I could tell of Ronnie. He was so anxious to catch a glimpse of the little fellow for himself that he insisted upon venturing farther on shore. He knew the secret of the barred room, so, bringing with him an oil cooking-stove, a kettle, and a few other things from the yacht, he took up his quarters there for a while.

"I was in an agony lest he should be discovered. I cannot tell you what I suffered on this account. He did not stay the whole time at the cave; indeed he lived mostly on the yacht, but kept spending occasional nights in the secret room. I never knew whether he was there or not, and the uncertainty made me wretched.

"During the last five years we had seemed continually to be standing on the brink of a volcano, and I was always prepared to face the worst.

"I can scarcely express how deeply I realized the difference between myself and all the other girls at school. I know you thought me reserved and uncommunicative and stand-off and everything that is disagreeable, but I simply dared not talk, for fear I might reveal something that would betray my father. You with your happy homes, and nothing to conceal, how can you understand what it is perpetually to guard a dreadful secret? I could tell you nothing about my home, for we had no home, we had only moved on from one lodging to another, and left no address behind. I could see that you misjudged me, and were full of suspicions, but I could not explain.

"You were annoyed with me for winning favour with Ronnie. You would not have grudged me his affection if you had known how I had craved for him all these years, and how hard, how very hard it was to be obliged to treat him as if I were an entire stranger, instead of his own sister. Then I was terribly afraid of meeting Mrs. Trevellyan, lest she should recognize my likeness to my father and guess our secret. I avoided her on every possible occasion, and on the whole I managed very successfully to keep out of her way.

"But Mother was pining and yearning to see Ronnie. The little photos I had sent, and my descriptions of him, added to the fact of her being in England, so near to him, only made her long for him more bitterly than before. It seemed so cruel that she—his own mother—must be so utterly parted from him. I was determined that she should have at least the poor satisfaction of seeing him, and I plotted and schemed to contrive a meeting. I decided that on the night of the beacon fire I might manage to carry Ronnie away for a few minutes, so as to give the opportunity we wanted. I cajoled him with promises of fairies, and persuaded him quite easily to go with me to find them. Father, who was as anxious and excited as Mother, was waiting with a boat, but you know the rest, for you followed us. Perhaps Mrs. Trevellyan suspected something—she must have known shortly afterwards, for she recognized Father when he rescued Ronnie on the cliff. I heard her call him by his name. Father used to be her favourite nephew, indeed he was almost like a son to her, but she had believed him guilty, and had told him never to show his face to her again. Even before Squire Trevellyan's death there had already been an estrangement between them because of his marriage. My mother was not their choice, and on this account Mrs. Trevellyan objected to her, and only once consented to meet her. Though Father sometimes went to the Castle to visit his uncle and aunt, my mother and I were never invited there, and Mrs. Trevellyan had not seen Ronnie until she adopted him.

"After the beacon fire I felt I had accomplished one part at least of my mission at school. Mother had seen and kissed her boy, and she seemed a little comforted and cheered in consequence. But the greater task which I had set myself, that of clearing my father's name, was still untouched. One possible clue there was which I thought I might follow up. Do you remember how in February we went to Forster's Folly? I knew that Mr. Forster had been the lawyer who drew up Squire Trevellyan's will and the famous codicil. That was the reason why I was so anxious to go into the house, and so excited when we found those letters lying about upstairs. I would have stayed to look at them if I had dared. You Deirdre, tore off a scrap of a letter with a crest on it, to take for your collection. Now that crest was the boar's head of the Trevellyans, which I knew very well, for it used to be on our own note-paper before our trouble came. You had torn the piece from the rest of the letter, but I could read—

"'Dear Forst ..

"'Kindly c.....'

And on turning the scrap over I found on the other side—

"'wish to ...

"'extra codi......'

"Could it be possible, I speculated, that this was a portion of an original letter sent by Squire Trevellyan to Mr. Forster, asking him to come to the house, as he wished to make an extra codicil to his will? If that were really so, it would make a most important piece of evidence. I begged you to give me the crest, but you would not part with it then, and locked it up. I was most anxious to go to Forster's Folly again and try to find the rest of the letter, but I never found an opportunity until last week. It was too far to venture in our recreation time, and I dare not be absent from school for hours without leave. I would have told Mother and asked her to go, but there were two reasons against this. We feared she might be known to the police, and that they would watch her so as to obtain some clue to my father's whereabouts, so she did not wish to venture into Cornwall while he was near the coast. When she came to see Ronnie she went over first to France, and our friend fetched her from there in the yacht, and took her back to St. Malo, so that she need not be seen on the South-Western Railway.

"My second reason was that until I could be sure that the other part of the letter really contained what I expected, it seemed cruel to raise false hopes. If you had seen, as I have, the bitter, bitter tragedy of my parents' lives, you would understand how I wanted to spare them a disappointment. So I waited and waited, and at last my opportunity came. Circumstances were kind, and when we had our whole day's holiday, I was chosen as a hare. Oh, how rejoiced I was when you decided to go past the windmill to Kergoff! I was determined to put in a visit somehow to the old house, but it came so naturally when we needed more paper. To my intense delight I found the other portion of the letter that I wanted, and then you were kind and gave me the scrap with the crest. The two fit exactly together. Look, I will show you! This is what they make when joined—

"'The Castle,

"'Thursday.

"'Dear Forster,

"'Kindly come to-morrow morning about eleven, if you can make that convenient, as I want to consult you on a matter of some importance. Those Victoria Mine shares have gone up beyond my wildest dreams, and I'm thinking of selling out now, and clearing what I can. They'll make a difference to my estate, and to meet this I wish to add an extra codicil to my will. L'Estrange is here, so you will see him. I have not been well—a touch of the old heart trouble, I am afraid. I must ask Jones to arrange for me to consult a London specialist. If you cannot come to-morrow morning, please arrange Saturday.

"'Sincerely yours,

"'Richard Trevellyan.'

This is very strong evidence that Squire Trevellyan intended making the codicil to his will. I am longing to show it to Father and Mother, but they are both away cruising in the yacht. I don't know where they are now; they promised to send me word when it was safe for me to write to them.

"When we began to hear those strange noises in the barred room, and yesterday you discovered the secret of its entrance, I was dreadfully alarmed. I thought my father must have come back again in spite of my warnings that the cave was unsafe. I felt so nervous and uneasy that at last I decided to go and see for myself, and beg him not to stay.

"When I reached the entrance, however, I did not dare to go in alone, in case it should be somebody else instead of my father who was there. I reproached myself for my cowardice, but I was only just screwing my courage to the point when you two arrived with Miss Birks. I need not tell you how relieved I was when we did not find my father. You saw my frantic excitement when it turned out that the tramp whom we discovered was no other than Abel Galsworthy, the missing witness to the will? With his oath and this precious, precious letter the evidence ought to be complete. Oh, the rapture of the day when Father's name is cleared and his honour restored, and he can live anywhere he likes, openly and without fear. Now I have told you my whole story. I'm sure you'll see why I was so queer and secretive, and so different from other girls."

"We understand and sympathize now," said Deirdre, "but you puzzled us very much at the time."

"We thought you were a German spy," chuckled Dulcie. "We were going to get great credit by finding out your wicked plot against England, and informing the Government!"

"Had you anything to do with that man in the aeroplane? Why, I'd almost forgotten him!" exclaimed Deirdre.

"I never even knew there was an aeroplane here," protested Gerda.

"You haven't told us your real name yet," urged Dulcie.

"Mary Gerda Trevellyan. Father and Mother have always called me Mamie, but I like Gerda best, and when I came to school I begged to be 'Gerda Thorwaldson', so that part at least of my name was genuine."

"Weren't you afraid that Mrs. Trevellyan might discover you through that?"

"She had always heard me alluded to as Mamie. We thought she had probably quite forgotten the 'Gerda'."

"There's one thing I still can't understand," said Dulcie. "We found out the entrance to the barred room, but why was it ever barred? It seems so extraordinary—right in the middle of a school."

"I can explain that too," returned Gerda. "Father has often told me the story. Years and years ago Squire and Mrs. Trevellyan had one only child, a little girl named Lillie. Father was very fond of this cousin, and they were almost like brother and sister together. Then, when she was ten years old, she died. At that time they were living at the Dower House, because alterations were being made at the Castle. Her death was very sudden—she was only ill a few hours. One day she was laughing and playing about, and on the next she was dead. Her poor father and mother were simply heart-broken. They took her toys, and all her little treasures, and put them in her bedroom, which they left just as if she were going to occupy it still. Then they locked up the door and barred it, and declared that during their lifetime nobody should ever enter. It was to be sacred to Lillie, and no one else must use it. My father, of course, knew about it, and he also knew of the secret passage—an old smuggler's way—that led into it from the cave. The door of this passage had been carefully nailed up before Lillie used the room, but he had heard that it opened over the fireplace. In his desperate need of a safe shelter he remembered this place, came up the passage, then forced the door and found his way into the room. He said it was surely no crime, for 'little Cousin Lillie' had been fond of him, and always ready to screen him in his boyish days, so he thought, if she could know, she would be glad for him to use what had once been hers."

"I haven't asked half all yet," persisted Dulcie. "Do you remember when first you came to school, we all tried our luck at St. Perran's well, and you were the only one who did the right things, and whose stick floated away? How did you manage it?"

Gerda smiled.

"Father had often told me about the well, and the exact way to perform St. Perran's ceremony. He used to try it with Lillie when he was a little boy. He said half the secret was to unstop the channel above the spring. My wish was that I might clear his name, so you see it came true, though at the time it seemed as unlikely as flying in an aeroplane to America."

"You put a message in a bottle and threw it into the sea for your father," said Deirdre. "You didn't know Dulcie and I fished it out?"

"Oh! Did you?" said Gerda reproachfully. "Then that was the letter he never received?"

Gerda's discovery in Abel Galsworthy of the missing witness for whom such long search had been made was certainly a very fortunate circumstance for that worthy. Instead of being handed over to the police, and prosecuted for trespassing and pilfering, he found himself provided with new clothes, comfortably lodged in the village, and given a promise of work when his important part in the law proceedings should be over. At present he was the hero of the hour, for on his word alone hung Mr. Trevellyan's honour. As the other witness and the lawyer were both dead, his oath to his signature would be sufficient to prove the genuineness of the codicil. There were, of course, elaborate legal proceedings to be taken. Mr. Trevellyan appealed for a reversal of the judgment in the former trial, and the case would have to wait its turn before it could come before the court. As the warrant for his arrest was still technically in force, he was obliged to continue living on the yacht until his innocence had been officially recognized—a state of affairs that greatly roused Gerda's indignation, though Miss Birks preached patience.

"I wanted Father and Mother to come to the prize-giving," she lamented.

"These legal difficulties cannot be rolled away in a few days," said Miss Birks. "Let us be thankful that we can count upon success later on."

Now that Gerda no longer needed to hide a tragic secret, her whole behaviour at the Dower House had altered, and her schoolfellows hardly recognized in the merry, genial, sociable companion, which she now proved, the silent recluse who had given her confidence to nobody. In this fresh attitude she was highly popular; the romance of her story appealed to the girls, and they were anxious to make up to her for having misjudged her. Also they greatly appreciated her newly-discovered capacity for fun and humour.

"Gerda never made one solitary joke before, and now she keeps us laughing all day," said Betty Scott.

"How could she laugh when she was carrying that terrible burden all the time?" commented Jessie Macpherson. "Poor child! No wonder she's different now the shadow's removed from her life."

"We'll have ripping fun with her next term," anticipated Annie Pridwell.

Meanwhile very little of the old term was left. The dreaded examination week arrived, bringing Dr. Harvey James to test those who were to undergo the piano ordeal, and Mr. Leonard Pearce to criticize the artistic efforts. In the other subjects there were written papers, which were corrected and judged by the donors of the prizes. In spite of much apprehension on the part of the girls, Dr. Harvey James made a good impression, and did not turn out to be the strict martinet they expected; indeed he commented so kindly and so helpfully on their playing that they began to look forward to their lessons with him during the forthcoming autumn.

The art class spent a delightful though anxious afternoon, sketching a group of picturesque Eastern pots artistically grouped by Mr. Leonard Pearce, who was kind and charitable in his criticisms of their little exhibition of paintings hung in the big classroom. To their delight he finished his visit by himself making a study of the pots, while they stood round and watched his clever brush dabbing on the colour with swift and skilful strokes.

"Miss Birks is going to have his sketch framed," said Deirdre appreciatively, when he had gone.

"I wish he could teach us every week," declared the art enthusiasts.

"Ah! you see, he lives in London, and only comes to Cornwall sometimes for a holiday. But Miss Birks has promised to get an artist next summer to give us sketching lessons."

One advantage of the smallness of the school was that it was not a lengthy matter to correct the examination papers of only twenty pupils. That work was soon over, and the girls had not long to remain in suspense before the lists were ready. The annual prize-giving was always the occasion of a social gathering. Some of the girls' parents came down for it, and friends in the neighbourhood were invited. If the weather were favourable, it was generally held in the garden, and this time, the sky being cloudless, all arrangements had been made on the lawn, where the gardener had erected a temporary platform. It seemed a great day to Gerda, as she came downstairs in her white dress, and watched the company that was already beginning to arrive. If only her father and mother could have been numbered among the guests her bliss would have been complete. Ronnie, however, was running in and out like a sunbeam, and her aunt had spoken to her, and had been kindness itself.

"We must all let bygones be bygones now, my dear, and rejoice together at this happy ending of our troubles," said Mrs. Trevellyan. "I hope you will soon come to know the Castle as well as Ronnie does, and feel equally at home there."

Most of the prizes fell exactly as had been expected. Jessie Macpherson won the lion's share in the Sixth, Hilda Marriott scored the record for Va, and Barbara Marshall and Romola Harvey divided the honours of Vb. Deirdre got "highly commended" for both music and drawing, but Dulcie, despite her valorous spurt at the finish, had no luck. She was only too delighted, however, to find that the prize for which she had tried—that for general improvement—had been awarded to Gerda.

"She deserves it if anyone does," she whispered to Deirdre. "I say, dare we start three cheers for her?"

"We'll risk it," returned Deirdre, augmenting the applause by a vigorous "Hip-hip-hip hooray!" which was at once taken up by the entire school. Gerda, red as a rose, walked back from the platform, blushing now with real bashfulness, instead of her old nervous apprehension. Ronnie was waving his little hat and shouting the shrillest of cheers, and Mrs. Trevellyan was clapping her best.

"Ave! Ave! winner of General Improvement!" exclaimed the members of Vb, as they welcomed her back to their particular bench. "Miss Birks couldn't have given it better!"

Gerda's eyes filled with tears.

"I'm glad if you do find me improved," she said. "It's ever so nice of you to be kind to me now. I was horrid before—and I knew it—but I couldn't help it."

"We understand exactly," sympathized the girls.

There is very little more of our story left to be told. Mr. Trevellyan won his case, and successfully proved his innocence to the whole world. Restored to good name and fortune, he has taken "Overdale", a pretty house in the neighbourhood of Pontperran, which happened to be to let. Gerda continues a pupil at the Dower House, though she is often able to visit her own home. Ronnie, while he will see his aunt every day, is to live with his parents, a fitting and also a very salutary arrangement, for he is no longer a baby, and was growing too much for Mrs. Trevellyan's and Miss Herbert's powers of management. The self-willed little fellow respects his father's authority, and will run far less risk of getting spoilt than when he was "King of the Castle".

"In a year or two the young rascal will be old enough for school," said Mr. Trevellyan, "and in the meantime he must get to know his mother and me."

Gerda is immensely delighted with her new home, and very proud to take school friends there on half-holidays. Deirdre and Dulcie are frequent visitors. Abel Galsworthy, a reformed character after his wanderings, is gardener at Overdale, and likely to prove a most devoted servant; and as for the torn letter, it is framed and glazed, and occupies the place of honour on the wall over the chimney-piece in Gerda's bedroom.