"Diana Hewlitt, it seems to me you've got yourself into some fix," she said to herself. "What's puzzling me is that I can't believe the evidence of my own eyes. Did I dream I saw Loveday go downstairs and take a roll of papers out of Hilary's desk? Goodness, I was only too horribly awake! The queerness of the thing bothers me. It doesn't fit in, somehow. Loveday! Loveday's the last person in the world, as I should have thought, to do a trick like that. I can't understand it. It's the sort of stupid thing that girls do in books. I never believed they did it in real life. Well, one thing's certain. I'm not going to tell about her—not if Miss Todd keeps me shut up here till I'm a hundred. Loveday shielded me when I ran away to say good-bye to Lenox, and I vowed I'd do the same for her if ever I got the chance. Well, I've got it now, and no mistake. Only—Loveday! Loveday! I don't understand! You've toppled down somehow off a pedestal. I feel as if something I liked had got broken."
It was anything but a cheerful afternoon for Diana. The only literature in the room was a catalogue of the Stores and some reports of charitable institutions. She read the cost of tins of sardines, pots of jam, table linen, household china and hardware, and tried to take some faint interest in the annual statements of the "District Nursing Association" and "The Society for Providing Surgical Appliances for the Sick Poor". To amuse herself she was reduced to choosing a word at random and seeing how many other words she could make out of it, but as she had no pencil in her pocket to write them down, it was rather difficult to keep count, and the occupation soon palled. Shortly after four o'clock she heard a scrimmage on the little landing outside the door. A deep-toned voice, that sounded like Miss Beverley's, said, "Come away this minute!" and a high-pitched, excited voice—undoubtedly Loveday's—protested, "If you'd only let me speak to her, I'm certain——"
Then a sound followed like somebody sliding down three steps at once, and Loveday's voice, with words indistinguishable, but tone still highly indignant, grew fainter and farther away till it ceased altogether. Diana smiled rather bitterly.
"It's not much use her coming and talking to me," she thought. "If she wants to tell anybody, she can tell Miss Todd. She needn't think I'll give her away. Don't suppose she knows, though, what I saw last night. It's a queer world! I'll be glad when I'm back in America. If Dad gets those passages he'll come and cart me off, Miss Todd or no Miss Todd. I'd like to see his face if he found me locked up in an attic."
Diana's tea was brought to her at five o'clock, and an hour later she was visited by the Principal, who again urged confession.
"What's the use of keeping this up?" asked the mistress impatiently. "You'll have to make a clean breast of it some time, so you may just as well do it at once. It's perfectly evident that you know where the essay is. You don't even deny that. What have you done with it?"
And again Diana stood with the same unyielding look on her face, and stared at the floor, and did not answer a word.
There is nothing so irritating as a person who utterly refuses to speak. Miss Todd glared at her, then turned towards the door.
"Very well; you may spend the night here. I'm not going to waste any more time on you now. Perhaps by to-morrow morning you'll be in a different frame of mind. I intend to know the truth of this; so it's merely a matter of waiting. You can leave here the moment you decide to confess; so you're punishing yourself by staying."