that fat man's playing on the
boat sounded. Do you remember?"

Ruth remembered. And suddenly the thought suggested by her frightened
chum entered her mind and swelled in it to vast proportions. She
could, in fact, think of little else than this new idea. She hushed
Helen as best she could. She told her she forgave her--but she said it
unfeelingly and more to hush her chum than aught else. She wanted to
think out this new train of thought to its logical conclusion.

"Hush and go to sleep, Helen," she advised. "We shall neither of us be
fit to get up at rising bell. It is very late. I--I wish those girls
had remained in their own rooms, that I do!"

"But there is one thing about it," said Helen, with half a sob and half
a chuckle. "They were more frightened than we were when they scuttled
out of this room before you returned. Oh! you should have seen them."

Ruth would say no more to her. There had been no light lit in all this
time, and now she snuggled down into her own bed. The excitement of
the recent happenings did not long keep Helen awake; but her friend and
room-mate lay for some time studying out the mystery of the campus.

Miss Picolet was out of her room.

The old Irishman, Tony Foyle, had mentioned chasing itinerant musicians
off the grounds that very evening--among them a harpist.

The evil-looking man who played the harp on board the steamship, and
who had so frightened little Miss Picolet, had followed the French
teacher ashore.

Had he followed her to Briarwood Hall? Was he an enemy who plagued the
little French teacher--perhaps blackmailed her?

These were the various ideas revolving in Ruth Fielding's head. And
they revolved until the girl fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and
they troubled her sleep all through the remainder of the night. For
that the man with the harp and Miss Picolet had a rendezvous behind the
marble figure on the campus fountain was the sum and substance of the
conclusion which Ruth had come to.

In the morning Ruth only mentioned these suppositions to Helen, but
discussed them not at all with the other girls, her new school-fellows.
Indeed, those girls who had set out to haze the two Infants, and had
been frightened by the manifestation of the sounding harp upon the
campus, were not likely to broach the subject to Ruth or Helen, either.
For they had intended to surround their raid upon the new-comers' peace
of mind with more or less secrecy.

However,