o lose
Tavia! Tavia would have righted this wrong long ago. But now she
stood alone! She could not even speak of leaving the school without
strengthening the cruel suspicion, whatever it might be.

What would she do? To whom would she turn?

Heart-sick, and all but ill, Dorothy turned into her lonely little
room. She would not attempt to go to classes that morning.

CHAPTER XX

SUSPICIONS

"What did she say?" eagerly asked a knot of girls, as Viola Green made
her appearance the morning after her interview with the head of
Glenwood school.

"Humph!" sniffed Viola, "what could she say?"

"Did she send for Dorothy?" went on the curious ones.

"I have just seen her step out of the office this minute and she
couldn't see me. Her eyes wouldn't let her."

"Then she didn't deny it!" spoke Amy Brook. "I could scarcely make
myself believe that of her."

"Ask her about it, then," suggested Viola, to whom the term brazen
would seem, at that moment, to be most applicable.

"Oh, excuse me," returned Amy. "I never wound where I can avoid it.
The most polite way always turns out the most satisfactory."

"And do you suppose she is going to leave school?" asked Nita Brant,
timidly, as if afraid of her own voice in the matter.

"She told me so last night," said Viola, meekly. "I don't blame her."

"No," said a girl with deep blue eyes, and a baby chin, "I do not see
how any girl could stand such cuts, and Dorothy seemed such a sweet
girl."

"Better go and hug her now," sneered Viola, "I fancy you will find her
rolled up in bed, with her red nose, dying for air."

"It is the strangest thing--" demurred Amy.

"Not at all," insisted Viola, "all sweet girls have two sides to their
characters. But I am sick of the whole thing. Let's drop it."

"And take up Dorothy again?" eagerly asked Nita.

"Oh, just as you like about that. If you want to associate with girls
who ride in police wagons--"

"Well, I do want to!" declared Nita, suddenly. "And I don't believe
one word against Dorothy Dale. It must be some mistake. I will ask
her about it myself."

"If you wish to spare her you will do nothing of the kind," said Viola.
"I tell you it is absolutely true. That she has just this minute
admitted it to Mrs. Pangborn. Don't you think if it were a mistake I
would have to correct it, when the thing has now been thoroughly
investigated?"

It was plain that many of the girls were apt to take Nita's view.