," bowed the disobedient lieutenant, as all
three rose from the table, "I'm going upstairs to my room to write a
letter."

Once in her room Marjorie went to her desk and opened it with a
reluctance born of the knowledge of a painful task to be performed.
Seating herself, she reached for her pen and nibbled the end soberly as
she racked her brain for the best way to begin a note to Constance.
Finally she decided and wrote:

"Dear Constance:

"I cannot come over to your house to-morrow or ever again. I know what
you wanted to tell me. It is too dreadful to think of. You should have
told me before. I will never let anyone know, so you need not worry. You
have hurt me terribly, and I can't forgive you yet, but I hope I shall
some day. I don't like to mention things, but for your own sake won't
you try to do what is right about the pin? I shall always speak to you
in school, for I don't wish the girls to know we have separated.

"Yours sorrowfully,

"MARJORIE."

When she had finished, the all-too-ready tears had again flooded her
eyes and dropped unrestrained upon the green blotting pad on her desk.
After a little she slowly wiped her eyes, and, without reading what she
had written, folded the letter, addressed and stamped it. Slipping into
her coat, she wound a silken scarf about her head and went downstairs.

"I'm going out to the mailbox, Mother," she called, as she passed the
living-room door.

"Very well," returned Mrs. Dean, abstractedly. She was deep in her book
and did not glance up, for which Marjorie was thankful. If her mother
noticed her reddened eyelids, explanations would necessarily follow.

The next day dragged interminably. Even the usual pleasure of going
shopping with her captain could not mitigate the pain of yesterday's
shocking discovery. To Marjorie the bare idea of theft was abhorrent.
When, at the Hallowe'en dance, Mignon had accused Constance of taking
her bracelet, Marjorie's wrath at the insult to her friend had been
righteous and sweeping.

That night, as she sat opposite her mother in the living-room trying to
read one of the books she had received for Christmas the incident of the
missing bracelet and Mignon's accusation suddenly loomed up in her mind
like an unwelcome specter. Suppose Mignon had been right, after all.
Jerry had openly asserted that she did not believe Mignon had really
lost her bracelet