And as the food had escaped the watchful eyes of the dean, it having been successfully hidden under sweaters, it was available for the post-midnight feast which was soon under way. Nor was the usual caution necessary, with the excitement over the chaplain’s strange adventure still seething.
As the girls ate they talked, naturally, each of the two groups telling the other their parts in the affair. They all admitted it was a queer mystery.
“Do you think the bell had anything to do with it?” Sim wanted to know.
“It might have been rung to draw our attention away from the orchard,” suggested Arden.
“But no one was paying the least bit of attention to the orchard in the first place,” objected Terry.
“But why was Henny there in the orchard at midnight?” Jane Randall propounded. “He had no business there.”
“No more than we had in the kitchen,” suggested Arden.
“But he was there,” declared Mary Todd.
“And something attacked him,” said Sim.
“And if you ask me,” said Arden positively, “I think that whatever it was that came at us, the night we had to get apples for the sophs, attacked our chaplain.”