ort time in the school, we all--I think I
may say all--love you."

Betty's eyes softened. She hitched her chair round a little, so that she
no longer saw Fanny, but could look at Margaret Grant and Martha West,
who were sitting side by side. Susie's pretty face was fairly shining
with eagerness, and Olive's eyes were full of tears. The Bertrams
clasped each other's hands, and but for Margaret's restraining presence
would have rushed to Betty's there and then and embraced her.

"But," said Margaret, "although we do love you--and I think will always
love you, Betty--we must do our duty by the club. You confessed a sin to
us--not at the time, as you ought to have done, but later on. No one
compelled you to confess what you did last night. There was no outside
pressure brought to bear on you. It must have been your conscience."

"I told you so," said Betty.

"Therefore," continued Margaret, "your conscience must be very
wide-awake, Betty, and you have done--well, so far--very nobly; so nobly
that nothing will induce us to ask you to withdraw from our club,
provided----"

Betty's eyes brightened, and some of the tension in her face relaxed.

"I have taken the votes of the members on that point," Margaret
continued, "therefore I know what I am speaking about. What we do most
emphatically require is that you carry your confession to its logical
conclusion--that what you have said to us you say to the kindest woman
in all the world, to dear Mrs. Haddo, and that you put the little packet
which has cost you such misery into Mrs. Haddo's hands. Don't speak for
a minute, please, Betty. We have been praying about you, all of us; we
have been longing--longing for you to do this thing. Please don't speak
for a minute. It is not in our power to turn you from the school, nor to
relate to Mrs. Haddo nor to any of the teachers what you have told us.
But we can dismiss you from the Speciality Club--that does lie in our
province; and we must do so, bitterly as we shall regret it, if you do
not carry your confession to its logical conclusion."

"Then I must go," said Betty very gently.

"Oh Betty!" exclaimed Olive; and she burst into a flood of weeping.
"Dear, dear, dear Betty, don't go--please don't go!"

"We will all support you if you are nervous," continued Margaret. "I
think we may say we will all support you, and Mrs. Haddo is so sweet;
and then, if you want to see him, there's Mr. Fairfax, who could tell
you what to do bette