"Nothing," was the muttered reply.
The matron had a great deal to say. For the next ten minutes she lectured the culprits with scathing severity.
"I shall recommend that you be expelled from college, Miss Seaton. Miss Gilbert, were you also a party to this affair?"
"Yes," was the tranquil response, "I knew all about it. Can't say I'm very proud of it. Still, it's rather too late now for regrets."
Maizie raised her unfathomable black eyes from their studied scrutiny of the floor. Quite by chance they met Jane's gray ones. Jane had a peculiar impression as of a veil that had been slowly lifted, revealing to her a Maizie Gilbert who had the possibilities of something higher than malicious mischief-making.
Obeying an impulse which suddenly swayed her, she turned to the matron.
"Mrs. Weatherbee," she said, "can't this affair be settled now and among ourselves? After all, no great harm has really come of it. The missing jewelry has been found, Judith has been exonerated, I still have my room, and no one except those present knows what has taken place here to-night. We are willing to forget it if you are. I am speaking for Judith and Norma. I am sure Elsie doesn't want her cousin to be expelled. Can't we blot it out and begin over again?"
"I should like it to be that way," said Judith quietly.
Norma nodded silent concurrence.
"I'll never forgive Marian, but I'd hate to see her expelled," Elsie said, after a brief hesitation. "I don't think Maizie ought to be, either. It's not half as much her fault as Marian's."