ing and dashed up the steps. The door was ajar,
but the shrouded guards were nowhere visible. She burst into the hall,
banged the door after her, and ran up the stairs in blind terror, with
no care for anybody, or anything else! Into the room at the end of the
corridor she hurried, and found it----

Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The
masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing,
panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled
goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst.

CHAPTER XII

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS

There was some movement downstairs now. Ruth Fielding heard a door
open and a voice speak in the lower corridor. Perhaps it was Miss
Scrimp, the matron. But every one of the skylarkers had cut to bed,
and the dormitories were as still as need be.

"Oh, Ruth!" gasped Helen, from her muffling bed clothes. "Did you hear
it?"

"Did I hear what?" panted Ruth.

"Oh! I was so frightened. There is something _dreadful_ about that
fountain. I heard whisperings and rustlings there; but the harp----"

"They did it to scare us," declared Ruth, in both anger and relief.
She _had_ been badly frightened, but she was getting control of herself
now.

"Then they frightened themselves," declared Helen, sitting up in bed.
"You heard the harp?"

"I should say so!"

"We were all at the window listening to hear if you would be frightened
and run," whispered Helen. "Oh, Ruthie!"

"What's the matter, now?" demanded her chum.

"I--I tried to help them. It was mean. I knew they were trying to
scare you, and I helped them. I wasn't so scared myself as I appeared
when I came in."

"WHAT?"

"I don't know what's made me act so mean to you this evening," sobbed
Helen. "I'm sure I love you, Ruth. And I know you wouldn't have
treated me so. But they said they were just going to have some fun
with you----"

"_Who_ said?" demanded Ruth.

"Mary Cox--and--and the others."

"They told you they were coming to haze us?"

"The Upedes--ye-es," admitted Helen. "And of course, it wouldn't
have amounted to anything if that---- Oh, Ruth! was it truly the harp
that sounded?"

"How could that marble harp make any sound?" demanded Ruth, sharply.

"But I know the girls were scared--just as scared as I was. They
expected nothing of the kind. And the twang of the strings sounded
just as loud as--as--well, as loud as