"Hallo, Ulyth! What are you doing there?"
"I'm coming over. Do please wait for me!"
And Ulyth, scrambling somehow across the wall, slid down a gravelly bank on to the road.
"You're the one person in the world I want to see," she added, hugging her friend impetuously. "Oh, Mrs. Arnold, the most dreadful things have been happening at school! Somebody took Stephie's pendant, and it fell out of Rona's pocket, and everybody thinks Rona took it, and Rona thinks it's me. What are we to do?"
"Sit down here and tell me all about it. Yes, please, begin at the very beginning, and don't leave anything out, however trivial. Sometimes the little things are the most important. Cheer up, child! We'll get to the bottom of it, never fear."
Sitting on the bank, with Mrs. Arnold's arm round her, Ulyth related the whole of her story, mentioning every detail she could remember. It was such a comfort to pour it out into sympathetic ears, and to one whose judgment was more likely to be unbiased than that of anyone connected with the school.
"You always understand," she said, with a sigh of relief, as she kissed the hand that was holding hers.
"It certainly is a tangled skein to unravel; but, as it happens, I really believe I can throw a little light upon the matter. You say Rona told you that somebody came into her bedroom last night, and presumably hid the pendant in her blouse pocket?"
"Yes; and she was sure that somebody was myself."
"Then what we have to do is to produce the real culprit."