"Don't pretend you don't understand. You atrocious sneak and
hypocrite--you took the pendant yourself!"

If she had been accused of purloining the Crown jewels from the Tower of
London, Ulyth could not have been more astonished.

"I----!" she stammered. "I----!"

"Yes, you, and you know it. I saw you."

"You couldn't!"

"But I did, or as good as saw you. Who came into our room last night, I
should like to know, when Miss Lodge had sent me to bed, and slipped
something into one of the blouses hanging behind the door? I'd forgotten
by the morning, but I remembered when the pendant came jerking out of my
pocket."

"Certainly I didn't put it there!"

"But you did. You came into the room, took off your outdoor coat, and
threw it on your bed. I got up, afterwards, and hung it up in your
wardrobe for you. Irene told me how you'd joined the cake club. She said
you had the password quite pat."

Ulyth was too aghast to answer. Rona, once she had broken silence,
continued in a torrent of indignation.

"You a Torch-bearer! You might well ask me not to expose you! 'Remember
the Camp-fire,' you said. Yes, it's because of the Camp-fire, and for
the sake of the school, that I've kept your secret. Don't be afraid. I'm
not going to tell. It wouldn't be good for the League if a Torch-bearer
toppled down so low! It doesn't matter so much for only a Wood-gatherer.
I won't betray a chum--I've brought that much honour from the Bush; but
I'll let you know what I think about you, at any rate."

Then, her blaze of passion suddenly fading, she burst into tears.

"Ulyth, Ulyth, how could you?" she sobbed. "You who taught me everything
that was good. I believed in you so utterly, I'd never have thought it
of you. Oh, why----"

"Cave! cave!" shouted Lizzie excitedly below. "Cave! Teddie herself!"

Ulyth turned and fled with more regard for speed than safety along the
veranda roof, and scrambled through the window into the linen-room
again. She was trembling with agitation. Such an extraordinary
development of the situation was as appalling as it was unexpected. She
must have time to think it over. She could not bear to speak to anybody
about it at present, not even to Lizzie. No, she must be alone. She ran
quickly downstairs, and, before Lizzie had time to find her, dived under
the laurels of the shrubbery and made her way first down the garden and
then to the very bottom of the paddock that adjoined the high road.
There was a littl