incipal's face, which had been grave before, took a yet sterner
expression.

"I am sorry, Gwen. Very sorry and most concerned. I thought I could
have trusted you entirely. It pains me beyond measure to find you have
betrayed my confidence."

"But I didn't take that nine and six! I didn't, indeed! I don't know
where it has gone; but I haven't got it! How can you accuse me of such
a dreadful thing?" blurted out Gwen indignantly.

"You can't deny the deficit," returned Miss Roscoe icily. "There is
the evidence of the checks and the cash to prove it. As you are not
able to account for it, I can only draw my own conclusions. As it
happens, I was this very morning made aware of the reason which must
have prompted your most dishonourable act."

"What do you mean?" cried Gwen with a choke in her voice.

For answer Miss Roscoe handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened
it nervously. It was a bill from Messrs. Parker & Sons, Glass and
China Merchants, to Miss Gwen Gascoyne, for ten shillings "to account
rendered", and written at the bottom were the words: "Your immediate
settlement will oblige". It seemed such a bolt from the blue that Gwen
turned all colours, and her hand trembled till she nearly dropped the
paper.

"Ah, you may well look conscious, Gwen! I have just learnt the full
history of this most deceitful business. I have had a letter from
Mrs. Goodwin, telling me that her daughter had confessed her share of
it, and as another bill for the broken china had arrived for you,
directed under cover to Netta, she considered it best to forward it on
to me, with an account of what had occurred, as it was only right that
I should know about it. She is most pained that her daughter should
have been even slightly implicated in such an affair, and Netta
herself seems truly to regret countenancing the deception and
screening you. I had a talk with her before school this morning. I
cannot exonerate her, but she is at least sorry for her conduct. With
this knowledge of your debt, Gwen, and your reasons for concealing it,
of course I realize plainly enough why you have been foolish and
wicked enough to take some of the gate money. No doubt you yielded to
a desperate temptation; you had much better make a clean breast of
it."

Gwen was trembling so greatly that she could hardly utter a reply.
Several times her white lips framed the words before she gasped out:

"I did break the china, and I owe the ten shillings for it, but