out of her. She'd
tell you better than anybody else in the whole school."

"I'll try my luck then."

"I'll stand in the garden below and shout 'Cave!' if I hear anyone
coming."

To help her unfortunate room-mate seemed the first consideration to
Ulyth, and she thought the end certainly justified the means. She waited
until after the tea interval, when most of the girls would be playing
tennis or walking in the glade; then, making sure that Lizzie was
watching in the garden below, she stole upstairs to the linen-room. It
was quite easy to drop from the window on to the top of the veranda, and
not very difficult, in spite of the slope, to walk along to the end of
the roof. Here an angle of the old part of the house jutted out, and the
open window of Rona's prison faced her only a couple of yards away. She
could not reach across the gap, but conversation would be perfectly
possible.

"Rona!" she called cautiously. "Rona!"

There was a movement inside the room, and a face appeared at the window.
Rona's eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her hair hung in wild
disorder. At the sight of Ulyth she started, and stared rather
defiantly.

"Rona! Rona, dear! I've been longing to see you. I felt I must speak to
you."

No reply. Rona, in fact, turned her back.

"I'm so dreadfully sorry," continued Ulyth. "I've been thinking about
you all day. It's no use keeping this up. Do confess and have done with
it."

Rona twisted round suddenly and faced Ulyth.

"Rona! You'd be so much happier if you'd own up you'd taken it. Surely
you only meant it as a joke on Stephie? Miss Bowes will forgive you. For
the sake of the school, do!"

Then Rona spoke.

"You ask me to confess--you, of all people!" she exclaimed with
unconcealed bitterness.

"Yes, dear. I can't urge it too strongly."

"You want me to tell Miss Bowes that I took that pendant?"

"There's no sense in concealing it, Rona."

The Cuckoo's eyes blazed. Her hands gripped the window-sill.

"Oh, this is too much! It's the limit! I couldn't have believed it
possible! You, Ulyth! you to ask me this! How can you? How dare you?"

Ulyth gazed at her in perplexity. She could not understand such an
outburst.

"Surely I, your own chum, have the best right to speak to you for your
own good?"

"My own good!" repeated Rona witheringly. "Yours, you mean. Oh yes, it's
all very fine for you, no doubt! You're to get off scot free."

"I? What are you talking about?"