"I'm afraid it's only too evident he wants to get rid of the burden of your education. We've got to trace him somehow. It's all very fine for him to leave you here and desert you!"
Gipsy's face turned crimson, and the big sob that had been gathering in her throat nearly choked her for a moment.
"Father would never desert me!" she gasped at last. "He promised faithfully he'd come back and fetch me. Oh! you don't know Dad, to say that. I'm afraid something's happened to him—out there!"
She did not tell Miss Poppleton how she had hoped against hope, and lain awake at night wondering, and searching her mind for any possible solution of his silence, but she looked such a forlorn little figure that in spite of herself the Principal slightly relented.
"Well, Gipsy," she said more kindly, "I'm afraid it looks a bad business. I'm sure you understand that it would be impossible for me to keep on my school if pupils did not pay their fees. I can't afford to be kept waiting. In your case, however, we'll let matters stand for awhile, and see if we hear from your father. In the meantime I might write to your cousins in New Zealand. It will take three months, though, before I can get a letter back."
"More," sighed Gipsy. "They only go down to the town once a month for letters, and not then if the river's in flood. They live in such a wild place—right up in the bush."
"At any rate they're your relations, and ought to be responsible for you," snapped Miss Poppleton. "If the worst comes to the worst, I could send you out to them through the Emigration Society. It's a very awkward position to be placed in—very awkward indeed. You're absolutely sure you know of nobody, either in England or at the Cape, who could give information about your father?"
"No one at all. I didn't know anything about Dad's business. I was at school, and he used just to come and fetch me for the holidays," confessed Gipsy sadly.
Miss Poppleton shut her account book with an annoyed slam.
"Well, there's no further help for it at present. We must see what turns up. Of course, I can't pretend to keep you here indefinitely. Give me the address of your cousins in New Zealand, and I will write to them to-day. That seems the best we can do. The whole thing is most unfortunate."