ished with the 'third degree?'"

"Refrain from slang, if you please. I never countenance such
expressions."

Viola only smiled. Evidently Miss Crane had reached "the end of her
rope."

"And you will make no explanation of why you told such a story to the
girls of Glenwood?" and the calm voice of the teacher rang out clearly
now. "No other reason to give for depriving one of the sweetest and
best of these girls of her happy place among her companions? And that
same girl refuses to tell her own story, because of a promise! She
must bear all the shame, all the suspicion, all the wrong silently,
when everybody knows she is shielding someone. Viola Green, to whom
did Dorothy Dale make that promise?"

"How should I know?" replied the other with curled lip.

"Who, then, is Dorothy Dale shielding?"

"Shielding? Why, probably her dear friend, Tavia Travers. I don't
know, of course. I am merely trying to help you out!"

That shot blazed home--it staggered Miss Crane. She had never thought
of Octavia! And she was so close a friend of Dorothy's--besides being
over reckless! It might be that Dorothy was shielding Tavia and that
she would not and could not break a promise made to the absent member
of Glenwood school.

Miss Crane was silent. She sat there gazing at Viola. Her pink and
white cheeks assumed a red tinge.

Viola was victorious again. She had only made a suggestion and that
suggestion had done all the rest.

"I will talk to Mrs. Pangborn," said Miss Crane finally, and she arose
and quietly left the room.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE REAL STORY

That night before twelve o'clock a telegram was delivered at Glenwood
school. It was for Viola Green and called her to the bedside of her
mother. It simply read: "Come at once. Mother very ill."

So the girl who had been tempting fate, who had refused to right a
wrong, who had turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of friends and the
commands of superiors, was now summoned to the bedside of the one
person in all the world she really loved--her mother!

Viola grasped the message from the hands of Mrs. Pangborn herself, who
thought to deliver it with as little alarm as possible. But it was not
possible to deceive Viola. Instantly she burst into tears and moans
with such violence that the principal was obliged to plead with the
girl to regard the feelings of those whose rooms adjoined hers. But
this did not affect Viola. She declared her darling littl