Fully as bewildered as the girls she had left behind her, Beverly went quickly to Miss Woodhull’s study. So far as she could recollect nothing could be scored against her deportment unless, at this late date her wild gallop to Kilton Hall had become known, or the presence of Athol and Archie at the Hallowe’en frolic had been discovered. True, she had recognized Athol and his companion as they were leaving the gymnasium that afternoon, but she did not believe that any one else had. As to any foreknowledge of that prank she had not had the slightest. So her conscience was quite clear on that score anyway. She tapped at the door and was bidden enter. Miss Woodhull’s expression as she looked at Beverly was most forbidding.

“Good-evening, Miss Woodhull. Miss Stetson said you wished to see me.”

Utterly ignoring the greeting, Miss Woodhull thrust toward Beverly the incriminating letter, at the same time demanding: “Who has had the audacity to send such a thing as this to you while you are a pupil in my school?”

Beverly started at sight of the lost love billet, Miss Woodhull noted the start and a sneer curved her set lips.

“No one sent it to me, Miss Woodhull,” she answered calmly.

“You will probably add that you have never seen it before.”

Beverly did not reply.

“Answer me at once.”

“Yes, I have seen it before.”

“Where did you last see it?”

“In my English history book.”

“How came it there, pray?”

“I put it there myself.”

“And yet you have the temerity to tell me that it is not yours? Are you in the habit of reading letters which are addressed to other people?”

“Was the letter addressed, Miss Woodhull? It was not even in an envelope when it came into my possession.”

“You have no doubt destroyed the envelope. Nevertheless, I must insist upon knowing who wrote that letter.”

“I cannot tell you, Miss Woodhull. I have never looked at the signature.”

“How dare you resort to such fencing with me? You cannot evade a direct answer, for I have resolved to learn the writer’s name, and report him to the principal of his school,” asserted Miss Woodhull, jumping at conclusions.

“I cannot tell you the writer’s name.”

“You mean that you will not. But, I warn you, this obstinacy only adds to the gravity of the situation.”

“It is not obstinacy, Miss Woodhull; I do not know it.”

“Yet you admit having had this open letter in your possession and insist that it is not your own? A curious combination, to say the least,” was the sarcastic retort.

“I had the letter, but it is not mine. I never read it, and I do not know the writer’s name.” This was entirely true, Beverly had never heard dear “Reggie’s” surname.

“Perhaps you are likewise ignorant of the identity of the two people who masqueraded as Tweedle-dee and Jack o’ Lantern?”

“They were my brother and his friend Archie,” was the prompt reply.

“Ah! Then you will admit something of this intrigue.”

“If it can be called by so portentious a name,” answered Beverly smiling.

That smile acted like a match to gunpowder. Miss Woodhull’s temper and self-control vanished together, and for a few moments Beverly was the object of a scathing volley of sarcastic invective. As it waxed hotter and hotter Beverly grew colder and colder, though her eyes and cheeks were blazing.

“It is useless to keep up this silly deception. You may as well try to make me believe that you were not aware of the presence of your brother and your silly sweetheart disguised as girls this afternoon, and that you did not lay the whole disgraceful plan for them to escape at the rear of the grounds.” Miss Woodhull did not confide to Beverly that she had been most beautifully hoodwinked by those same girls, who had actually gone into the reception room, partaken of the “eats” with the other guests, held charmingly lisping conversations with two or three of the faculty, Miss Woodhull included, who had afterward commented upon the “charming manners of the two young girls who had come from Luray,” they having so informed that lady.

“Sweetheart?” repeated Beverly in amazement. It was the one word which burned itself into her brain. The tone in which she echoed it ought to have enlightened Miss Woodhull. “Archie my sweetheart?”

“I dare say that is what you call him, since he so terms you in this missive,” sneered Miss Woodhull.

“Archie is like an older brother to me, Miss Woodhull. We were raised together,” said Beverly with a simple dignity which should have prohibited further taunts of the kind.

“Raised?” queried the lady. “Do you class yourself with the vegetable or the lower animal kingdom?”

“I think you must have heard that expression used before in Virginia,” was the quiet reply, though her cheeks grew a deeper red, and had Mrs. Ashby been present, and occupying the tribunal it is safe to assume that she would have been prepared for something to happen right speedily. Indeed it was a wonder something had not happened long ago.

“It is just such barbarisms of speech that I have spent a quarter of a century in a vain endeavor to eliminate from the extraordinary vocabulary of this section of the United States, but I recognize it to be a Sisyphus task. That, however, is aside the question. The vital ones at this moment are: By whom was this letter written? When did you receive it? What is the meaning of its contents, and how you could have had the audacity to hold clandestine meetings with this young man? Also, how many times he has actually forced himself into my school disguised as a girl?”

In a slow even voice Beverly replied to each question:

“I do not know the name of the person who wrote that letter. I never received it. I can not tell you the meaning of the contents because I do not know them. I have never held any clandestine meetings with Athol or Archie, and so far as I knew until after the game today they had been in this school but once. At that time I knew they were coming and we did it partly for a lark and partly because I wanted so terribly to see Athol.” A little catch came into her voice just there. Miss Woodhull wholly misinterpreted the reason for it and murmured sarcastically:

“Athol.”

“Yes, my twin brother, Miss Woodhull. I do not expect you to understand what we have always been to each other. As to their presence here this afternoon, I knew absolutely nothing of it until Athol pitched his muff into the air and gave our old yell of victory at the end of the game,” and Beverly nearly laughed at the recollection of her start when the old familiar sound fell upon her ears, and the memory of the way in which that muff had hurtled into the air.

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

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

“Did you understand my command?”

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

“Decline! Decline!” almost shrieked the infuriated principal. “Do you dare defy my commands?”

“I do not wish to defy your orders, Miss Woodhull, but I can not read someone else’s letter.”

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

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

Beverly stood rigid. Miss Woodhull waited.

“Perhaps you will be good enough to give a name to your fictitious being?”

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

“Who dropped that letter?” The words were in italics, notwithstanding the fact that some vague doubts were beginning to form in the back of the principal’s brain.

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

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

“I shall never tell you no matter what you do to me. What do you take me for? How dare you think me capable of such a low-down, mucker trick?” Unconsciously she had lapsed into Athol’s vernacular. It was the last touch to Miss Woodhull’s wrath. She actually flew up out of her chair and catching Beverly by her shoulders shook her soundly. Then it all happened in a flash. Miss Woodhull was a tall woman and a large woman as well. She weighed at least one-hundred-seventy pounds. But from lack of proper exercise (she loathed walking) and the enjoyment of the many luxuries which the past successful years had made possible, she was exactly like a well-modeled India rubber figure.

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

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

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

“How dare you touch me! How dare you!”

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

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

“What do you suppose has happened?” asked Sally breathlessly.

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

“What can we do?” asked Sally in deep distress.

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

Meanwhile down in that perfectly appointed study a very dazed woman sat rigid and silent. For the very first time in all her life she had encountered a will stronger than her own, had met in the person of an individual only a quarter of her own age a force which had literally and figuratively swept her off her feet and set at naught a resolution which she believed to be indomitable. And worst of all, it had all come to pass because she had lost her self-control. Up to her own outbreak Miss Woodhull was forced to admit that Beverly had been absolutely courteous. It was purely her own act which had precipitated that climax. For fully half an hour she sat as one stunned, then she said, and the words almost hissed from her colorless lips:

“I shall make an example of her! She shall be expelled in disgrace!” though then and there she resolved that none should ever learn of that final scene, and—well—somehow, though she could not explain her conviction, she knew that the outside world would never learn of it through Beverly.