it had all come to pass
because she had lost her self-control. Up to her own outbreak Miss
Woodhull was forced to admit that Beverly had been absolutely courteous.
It was purely her own act which had precipitated that climax. For fully
half an hour she sat as one stunned, then she said, and the words almost
hissed from her colorless lips:

"I shall make an example of her! She shall be expelled in disgrace!"
though then and there she resolved that none should ever learn of that
final scene, and--well--somehow, though she could not explain her
conviction, she knew that the outside world would never learn of it
through Beverly.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE WEE SMA' HOURS

When Beverly swept into her room her thoughts were like a seething
cauldron; One instant one impression boiled to the surface, only to be
submerged the very next by others surging to the top. She could not think
connectedly. Everything seemed jumbled pell mell in her brains. Just one
incident took definite shape: She had been shaken like a naughty child
and told that she was lying. And all because every instinct of honor and
justice forbade her betraying a class-mate, even though she entertained
for her little less than contempt. And the effect of Miss Woodhull's act
was very much as though a man had deliberately walked up to Admiral
Seldon, accused him of lying and slapped his face.

During the six months which she had spent at Leslie Manor, Beverly Ashby
had been no more nor less than just herself: neither better nor worse
than the average girl. But for her six months in a boarding-school
presided over by a woman who had never known any real girlhood, or
girlhood's exuberance, was an experience far different than for the
average girl. Miss Woodhull had grown more and more iconoclastic, and
more of a law unto herself with each advancing year. She had become as
adamant to all natural impulses, and apparently dead to all affection.
Bitterly intolerant of suggestion, advice, or even the natural laws of
ethics. With each year she had grown more difficult to live with, and
less and less fitted to govern growing girls. But in the beginning the
school had established a reputation for the thoroughness of its
curriculum and its instruction, as well as for its discipline, and there
is little doubt that some of the girls which had come to it during the
past thirty years were in need of some discipline.