There was so much excitement among the crew of the freshman eight, however, that Ruth's treasure-trove was not discovered. Under Miss Mallory's direction they launched the shell again, climbed aboard, and made a safe passage to the dock.
A notice was put up that very evening, however, to the effect that none of the racing shells were to be taken out unless the launch was manned and went with the frailer craft.
The students of Ardmore were allowed to leave the college grounds in the evening if they were properly chaperoned. And when Ruth went to Miss Cullam and explained a little of what was afoot, the mathematics instructor was only too glad to act in the capacity of chaperon.
Helen had telephoned for a car, and the three rode down to Greenburg immediately after dinner. Ruth carried the recovered vase, just as she had dug it out of the hole by the Stone Face on Bliss Island, wrapped in a paper. She had not had time either to clean it or to examine it more thoroughly.
They easily found the boarding house, the address of which Betty Rolff had given to Ruth. It was a respectable place, but was far from sumptuous. It was evident, as Ruth had been previously informed, that the Rolff girls were not very well off in this world's goods.
When the visitors climbed to the second floor bedroom where the sisters were lodged, Miss Cullam took the lead, walked straight in, seized Margaret Rolff in her arms and implanted a kiss upon the pale cheek of the girl who had for so many months been Aunt Alvirah's assistant at the Red Mill.
"You poor girl!" said the mathematics teacher. "What you must have been through! Now, I am delighted to see you again, and you must tell me all about it—how you came to take the vase, and bury it, and all."
There was a good deal of talk on both sides before all this that Miss Cullam asked was explained. But the facts were made clear at last.
In the first place, Margaret Rolff had always been very much afraid of the dark and of being alone at night. But she wanted so much to become a member of the Kappa Alpha that she did not try to cry off when she received her instructions as a candidate for membership in that sorority.
The first part of her initiation test was easy enough. She secured the Egyptian vase from the reception room of the library without being apprehended. Then she was rowed across the lake to the island by several black-robed and hooded figures whom she did not know.