"But what?"
"Ah, that's just the question!"
Marjorie was very much upset and disturbed. She could scarcely keep her attention on her classes that morning. "Where has Chrissie gone, and why?" she kept asking herself. At dinner-time there was still no news of the truant. It was rumoured that Mrs. Morrison had telegraphed to Mrs. Lang, and had received no reply. The Principal looked anxious and worried. She felt responsible for the safety of her missing pupil.
Early in the afternoon, Marjorie, wishing to be alone, took a stroll down the dingle. It was a favourite haunt of Chrissie's, who had often sat reading beside the little brook. Marjorie walked to the very stone that had been her usual seat. The sharpenings of a lead pencil were still there, and lying at the edge of the water was a crumpled-up piece of paper. Marjorie picked it up and smoothed it out. It was in Chrissie's writing, and contained a list of details in connection with tanks and guns, also particulars of the Redferne munition works and the Belgian colony there, and several other pieces of information in connection with the war. She stared at it in consternation. A sudden light began to break in upon her mind.
"Good heavens! Was it Chrissie after all who was the spy?" she choked.
The idea seemed too horrible. It was she herself who had so readily answered all her chum's questions in regard to these things. In doing so, had she not been betraying her own country? Once the clue was given, all sorts of suspicious circumstances came rushing into her mind. She wondered it had never struck her before to doubt her friend's patriotism. Nearly distracted with the dreadful discovery, she hurried away to find Winifrede, and, showing her the paper, poured out her story. Winifrede listened aghast.
"I'm afraid it's only too true, Marjorie," she said. "I've been talking to Mrs. Morrison, and all sorts of queer things have come out about Chrissie. It seems that a prisoner has escaped last night from the German camp, and they think it must have been her brother, and that she helped him. Mrs. Morrison has had a long talk with a detective, and he said they telegraphed to Millgrove, where Chrissie's mother lives, and the police there found the house shut up, and discovered that she is a German, and that her true name is Lange, not Lang. The detective said they have had Brackenfield under observation lately, for they suspected that somebody was heliographing messages with a mirror to the German camp. And who put that bicycle lamp in the Observatory window last spring? We have certainly had a spy in our midst. We ought to take this paper at once to Mrs. Morrison, and you must tell her all you know."
Marjorie not only had a long talk with the Principal, but was also forced to undergo an examination by the detective, who asked her a string of questions, until he had extorted every possible detail that she could remember.
"There's not a shadow of a doubt," was his verdict. "There are plenty of these spies about the country. It's our business to look after them. Pity she got away so neatly. I'm afraid she and her precious brother must have had a boat in waiting for them. It's abominable the amount of collusion there is with the enemy. They'd accomplices in Whitecliffe, no doubt, if we could only get on the track of them."
"I wish you had mentioned all this to me sooner, Marjorie," said Mrs. Morrison.