gh the Chaddites tried to keep their shame hushed up, the news
leaked out somehow, and very soon spread through the entire College,
where it instantly became the one absorbing topic of conversation.
Owing to her prowess at cricket, and her friendly, amusing ways, Honor
had won more notice than most new girls among her two hundred
schoolfellows; but, in spite of her undoubted popularity, she was
universally judged to be guilty. The general argument was that the
money was missing, that somebody must have taken it, that Honor was
known to have needed it desperately, and that her action in running
away showed above everything that she dared not stay to have the matter
investigated.

Janie thought that no day had ever been so long. The hours seemed
absolutely interminable. Her lessons had been badly prepared the night
before, and won for her a reproof from Miss Farrar; and her thoughts
were so constantly occupied with wondering where Honor had fled that
she could scarcely attend to the work in class, and often answered at
random. Her head was aching badly, and her eyes were sore with crying,
neither of which was conducive to good memory, or lucid explanations;
so she was not surprised to find at the end of the morning that her
record was the worst she had had during the whole term.

The afternoon was cool after the rain of the previous evening, and
games were once more in full swing. Dearly as she would have liked to
shirk her part in them, Janie was not allowed to absent herself; but
she played so badly that she drew Miss Young's scorn on her head, to
say nothing of the wrath of the Chaddites.

"You missed two catches--simply dropped them straight out of your
hands! You're an absolute butter-fingers!" exclaimed Chatty Burns
indignantly.

Janie was too crushed by utter misery to mind this extra straw. She
retired thankfully to the pavilion as soon as she was allowed, feeling
that missed catches or schoolmates' scoldings were of small importance
in the present state of general misfortune.

"If I could only find out who took the sovereign!" she thought. "Honor
certainly did not, so somebody else must have. Who? That's the
question. I wish I were an amateur detective, like the clever people
one reads about in magazines. They just get a clue, and find it all out
so easily, while the police are on quite a wrong tack. The chief thing
seems to be to make a beginning, and I don't know in the least where to
start."

Neither t