"Oh, I don't know," answered Harriet despairingly. "But surely, Mrs.
Livingston, you do not accuse me of anything so dreadful as mixing soap
with the consomme? Oh, you don't mean that; you can't mean it?"

"While I am not by any means accusing you, the facts on the face of the
affair speak for themselves, and----"

The Chief Guardian was interrupted by the sudden springing to her feet of
Crazy Jane. Her face was flushed; her hair was disarranged her arms were
raised above her head.

[Illustration: "Oh, Shame On All of You!" Cried Jane.]

"Oh, shame on all of you!" cried the girl. "My darlin' Harriet wouldn't do
such a thing. Never! Show me the one who did it, knowing that the darlin'
girl would be accused. I'll scratch her eyes out, I will!"

Jane was in a towering rage. The calm voice of Mrs. Livingston interrupted
the tirade.

"Miss McCarthy, be good enough to resume your seat," she said.

Jane hesitated. For a few perilous seconds she struggled with herself. The
girls expected an outbreak more vehement than her first. Instead, Jane sat
down with an emphasis that jarred the dishes on the table.

"We will now continue with this matter. Can any person here explain,
first how the consomme happens to be soaped, and secondly why soap is
found in Miss Burrell's kit?" questioned Mrs. Livingston.

A painful silence reigned in the cook tent. There seemed to be no
explanation of the mystery.

"There was nothing of the sort in the box when last I used it," reiterated
Harriet, "I am positive of that, Mrs. Livingston. Nor could it have been
at the bottom of the box under the other things. Knowing that I had
finished my work in the soup test, I examined the contents of the box to
put everything in order."

"You locked the box afterwards?"

"Immediately. I hung the key in its accustomed place, too."

"You have no idea when the soap was dropped into the soup kettle?"

"No. But wait! Just before I came into the cook tent to sit down I tasted
the soup, as I had done a dozen times before while in the kitchen to make
sure that it was exactly as it should be."

"Did you taste it just before you came in to dinner? Did you detect
anything wrong with it, Miss Burrell?"

"There was nothing wrong with it then. I mean--you know what I mean.
There was none of this soapy taste in it at all. To me it tasted
delicious. The first I realized that something had happened to the
consomme, was when I took a spoonful of it at the table