"I suppose we should hardly have read the letter—"
"Why not? Should we have risked our precious lives up in that attic and then turned down this important clue? Indeed I'm all for asking Shirley to introduce me," and Dozia strutted off to show her height if not to display the "runs" in her hose and the "threadbares" in her sweater elbows.
"But it does sort of take one down," mused Jane, following her companion toward Warburton Hall. "I hate to feel I have so misjudged Shirley."
"Pure personal pride on your part, Jane. I have proof positive of the girl's perfidy. Every single day I must paste anew the paper decoration that hides her work. I mean that crack in my mirror. More than once it has done dreadful things to my poor face. If I move just one inch to the left the crack gashes my right cheek. You know how a glass reflects. But this brother. May I see the paper, Jane? His name might be between the lines."
"Oh, it's Ted," said Jane innocently. "See the signature here, but no address, of course. And from that immature hand, Doze, I am sure Ted is a junior."
"But, Jane!" almost gasped Dozia. "What can you do with that letter? It would be positively dangerous to let Shirley know you found it. It would mean, logically, that she rang the ghost chains, and that you knew she had helped her brother financially." All the nonsense had now died out of Dozia's voice, and she compelled Jane to stand while she proclaimed this ultimatum.
"But how could she get up there, Dozia, when we know positively she was not on the campus the night of the big alarm?"
"And little Sarah is innocent, I am sure," went on Dozia, "for she handled that trash with an interest too keen for previous acquaintance with the stuff. Each piece gave her a little spasm of surprise. I watched just how it affected her."
"Queer, I noticed that also," said Jane. "Yes, I'm sure she never saw the armor before. But Shirley is never around in any excitement. I am afraid she spends a lot of time in Dol Vin's."
"But how could she ever get two hundred dollars for brother Ted?"