ers which I have just found in
your desk, Netta Goodwin! Ida Bridge, come here! It is only fair that
Netta should hear your accusation. Tell me again, in her presence,
exactly what you witnessed."

"Please, Miss Roscoe," began Ida in her high-pitched voice, "I saw
Netta come out of your study before dinner, and come here. I peeped
round the door, and she was writing something on half-sheets of paper,
and putting them inside envelopes. Then I told Peggie, and afterwards
we watched her go into your study again and put her pile of envelopes
on your table, and take yours away and pop them into her desk."

"Do you endorse this statement, Peggie Weston?"

"Yes, Miss Roscoe, it's quite true," murmured Peggie nervously.

"Netta Goodwin, have you anything to answer in reply to this charge?"

But Netta kept her eyes on the ground, and did not reply. Miss Roscoe,
who was still standing beside the open desk, began to turn over some
of the loose pieces of exercise paper which it contained, and shook
her head as she noticed the names of various candidates scrawled in
different handwritings, evidently for practice. Determined to
investigate the affair thoroughly, she pulled out yet more papers, and
among them a small roll fastened by a brass clip. At this she glanced
with attention, then with marked surprise. "Netta Goodwin," she
continued, "this is an entirely different matter, but one which I
should like explained nevertheless. Last term you gained a prize for
an essay on Thomas Carlyle. How is it that there is a manuscript of
this essay in your desk, signed 'Gwen Gascoyne'? Yes, and in Gwen's
handwriting, too, which I know well."

Netta glanced hastily at Gwen, who had turned as red as fire. Perhaps
feeling that she had already been so entirely exposed that an added
circumstance would make little difference, and wishing to get Gwen
also into trouble, Netta suddenly resolved to make a full confession.

"I suppose I may as well tell everything," she volunteered sulkily.
"Yes--I did want to get the tennis championship, and I altered the
names because I didn't think I had a chance otherwise. About that
essay, it was Gwen Gascoyne's. She wrote it, but she sold it to me for
a sovereign."

"And you passed it off as your own?"

"I'd paid for it, so I just copied it. I couldn't see where the harm
came in!" said Netta doggedly.

"Netta Goodwin, have you absolutely no sense of right and wrong, or
any vestige of conscience?"

"I