und Mrs. Bonnell and together they hurried up stairs. But
Mrs. Bonnell was no more successful in getting a response to her calls
than the girls had been.

"Sally, can you climb?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Bonnell," answered Sally wholly bewildered.

"Then crawl through your window and along the roof to Beverly's. I'm not
going to stir up a fuss unless I am compelled to. Look in and tell me
what you see. Be careful, dear," she ended as Sally scuttled over the
window sill. They leaned out to watch her. She gave a little cry when she
discovered that the room was empty.

"What is it?" they asked in a breath.

"She--she isn't there at all," gasped Sally.

"Not there! Raise the window and go in and unfasten the door, Sally. Be
quick for the breakfast bell will ring in a few minutes."

Sally did as bidden. The room was as undisturbed as it had been twelve
hours before.

Aileen ran to the closet. "Her riding things are gone!" she cried.

"And Wesley just told me that Apache had been stolen in the night,"
wailed Sally.

"There is more to this than we thought," said Mrs. Bonnell considerably
perturbed. "Now I _must_ report to Miss Woodhull."

She turned and hurried from the room but had not gone ten steps down the
corridor when she met that lady with wrath and fire in her eye.

"What is this fresh annoyance concerning Beverly Ashby? Jefferson has
just told me that her horse was stolen in the night. A likely story! It
is some new deception upon her part. Such duplicity it has never been my
misfortune to encounter. I wish to speak to her at once," stormed the
principal, striding into the study.

Now to be responsible for a young girl not yet sixteen years of age, and
one whose family is widely known throughout the entire state, and to
discover that said young lady has been missing from beneath one's roof
all night, is, to say the least, disconcerting. For the first time in her
domineering life the Empress was thoroughly alarmed. Alarmed for
Beverly's safety, the reputation of the school, and, last, but by no
means least, for what such a denouement might bring to pass in the future
financial outlook for her business. The school had paid well, but how
long would its patronage continue if the facts of this case became widely
known?

Miss Woodhull was an alien in the land of her adoption. She had never
tried to be anything else. She had established herself at Leslie Manor
because she wished to acquire health and wealth, a