examinations, which were to continue until Friday evening. Meanwhile
Raymonde was in the position of a remanded prisoner at the bar. She
was not allowed to mingle with the rest of the school. She was
conducted, under Mademoiselle's escort, to her place in the
examination hall, but spent the remainder of her time in the
practising-room, which served as a temporary jail. Her meals were sent
up to her, and no girl was allowed, under penalty of expulsion, to
attempt to communicate with her. She was not permitted to go to the
dormitory at night, but slept on a chair-bed in Miss Beasley's
dressing-room.

Naturally the episode was the talk of the school. Its interest
eclipsed even the horror of the examinations. It seemed a mystery
which no one could disentangle. The girls remembered only too well
that Raymonde had been very secretive about how she had obtained the
fountain pen; but, on the other hand, witnesses declared that they had
seen her both at the post office and in the practising-room, when she
certainly could not have been in two places at once.

The Fifth decided that the Reverend T. W. Beasley must be at the
bottom of it. There had never been any disturbances before he came to
the school, and since his arrival everything had been unpleasant,
therefore he must be distinctly responsible for Raymonde's
misfortunes; which was hardly a reasonable conclusion, however loyal
it might be to their friend. The Mystics talked the matter over in
private, and suggested many bold but quite impracticable schemes, such
as subscribing the missing money amongst them, or throwing up a
rope-ladder to the sanctum window for Raymonde to escape by, neither
of which plans would have cleared her character.

Raymonde herself preserved an extraordinary attitude of obstinacy. She
utterly refused to give any more explanations. She did not cry, but
there was a grey misery in her face that was worse than tears. She
walked in and out of the examination hall with her head proudly erect.
Her comrades, with surreptitious sympathy, glanced up as she passed,
but under the lynx eye of their examiner were unable to convey to her
the notes which several of them at least had prepared ready to pass
under the desk.

On Friday afternoon Raymonde was sitting alone in the practising-room,
when the door was unlocked and Veronica entered with a tray.

"I've come to bring your tea," explained the monitress. "I don't
really know whether I'm supposed to be al