was
not loud, but it could be heard to the end of the great hall.

"You are no longer a member?"

"No."

"Three days ago I and the other governors sent for you to ask you
certain questions. You refused to answer those questions then. We gave
you three days to consider, telling you that if at the end of that time
you still kept to your resolution there was only one thing for us to do,
and that was to make an example of you in the presence of the entire
school--in short, to take from you your right of membership, and to
expel you from the school, taking from you all privileges, all chances
of acquiring learning and the different valuable scholarships which this
school was opening to you. We came to this most painful resolve knowing
well that it would cast a blight upon your life, that wherever you went
the knowledge that you had been publicly expelled from the Great Shirley
School would follow you--that you would, in short, step down, Ruth
Craven. I quite understand from the expression of your face that you are
the sort of child who imagines that she is doing right when she keeps
back the knowledge which she thinks she ought not to betray; but we
governors do not agree with you. There are six of us here, and we wish
to tell you that if you now refuse the information which we wish to
obtain from you, you will do _wrong_. You are young, and cannot know as
much as we do. We earnestly beg of you, therefore; not to make a martyr
of yourself in a silly and ridiculous cause.--Mrs. Naylor, will you now
say what you think to Ruth Craven?"

"I think, dear child," said Mrs. Naylor, speaking in a tremulous voice,
which could scarcely be heard half-way down the room, "that it would be
best for you not to conceal the truth."

"And I agree," said Mrs. Ross.

"We all agree," said the Misses Scott and Miss Jane Smyth.

"We all think, dear," continued Mrs. Naylor, "that for the sake of any
chivalrous ideas, quite worthy in themselves, it is a considerable pity
for you to spoil your life. You are not the sort of child who could
stand disgrace."

"And you don't look the sort of child who would under ordinary
circumstances act the idiot," said Miss Mackenzie sharply. "As to the
chivalrous nature of your silence, I fail to see it. I hope you have
carefully considered the position and are prepared to act openly and
honorably. By go doing you will save the school and yourself. Now then,
Ruth Craven, will you come a little more forward