er? They may have all
kinds of treasonable secrets in them. Norty might get information and
send it to those friends in foreign countries, and they would telegraph
it in code through a neutral country to Berlin."

She ascertained through one of the prefects that Miss Norton intended to
spend her holidays in the Isle of Wight. This again seemed
extraordinary, for the teacher notoriously suffered greatly from the
heat in summer, and yearned for a bracing climate such as that of
Scotland; further, she was nervous about air raids, so that the south
coast would surely be a very unsuitable spot to select for one who
wished to take a restful vacation. Patricia, whose parents had been on a
visit to Whitecliffe, and had taken her out on a Saturday afternoon,
reported that at the hotel some foreigners--presumably Belgians--were
staying, and that she had noticed Miss Norton drinking coffee with them
in the lounge.

"Are you sure they were Belgians?" asked Marjorie with assumed
carelessness.

"Why, the people in the hotel said so."

"What were they like?"

"Oh, fair and rather fat! One of them was a Madame Moeller. She played
the piano beautifully; everybody came flocking into the lounge to listen
to her."

"Moeller doesn't sound like a French name."

"Well, I said they were Belgians."

"It has rather a German smack about it. What language were they speaking
to each other?"

"Something I couldn't understand. Not French, certainly."

"Was it German?"

"I don't know any German, so I can't tell. It might have been Flemish."

Marjorie several times felt tempted to confide her suspicions to
Winifrede, but her courage never rose to the required point. She had an
instinct that the head girl would pooh-pooh the whole matter, and either
call her a ridiculous child, or be rather angry with her for harbouring
such ideas about her house mistress. Winifrede liked to lead, and was
never very ready to adopt other people's opinions; it was improbable
that she would listen readily to the views of an Intermediate, even of
one whom she was patronizing. A head girl is somewhat in the position of
the lion in AEsop's fables: it is unwise to offend her. Knowing
Winifrede's disposition, Marjorie dared not risk a breach of the very
desirable intimacy which at present existed between them. She yearned,
however, for a confidante. The burden of her suspicions was heavy to
bear alone, and she felt that sometimes two heads were better than one.