“Give it to me, please,” Betty said, coming out into the light. She noticed that Helena took her watch off the chain first, and then slipped out the key. “So you didn’t take it to-day,” she said.
“I never said when I took it,” Helena flashed back angrily. “I’ve had it several weeks, if you want to know. The girls in this house are bores and frightfully curious. Whenever I don’t want to see them and have them fussing around, why, I come in here and wait till Esther is alone. There’s no great harm in that, as far as I can see. I’ve done it all winter.”
Betty was frankly puzzled what to answer. “Why, no—except that you gave me a dreadful fright just now,” she said slowly. “And—yes, Miss Mason, there is harm in it. It’s a sly and sneaking way of acting. No girl would hide in here as you say you have done without a good reason, and the reason can’t but be discreditable. I don’t ask you to tell me what it is, but I do ask you and Esther to talk it over and think what you ought to do about it. And if you want any advice from me or Mrs. Post, when she’s better, or want to tell us anything in justice to yourselves or the house, why, we shall be only too glad to help.”
Betty gathered up her towels and departed, hoping she had said the right thing and devoutly wishing, as she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, that she looked older and more impressive, the better to emphasize her good advice. Half-way down the stairs she halted. “Why, she’s the ghost!” she said to herself. “I’ve caught our ghost! How queer that I never thought of that till now. And I’m afraid that in this case the Thorn is right about the connection between ghosts and somebody’s wrong-doing. Either Helena Mason is crazy, or she’s hiding something that she’s ashamed of. I wish Esther would tell Mrs. Post all about it. It’s so queer that it worries me.”
A few minutes later there was a knock on Betty’s door. The Mystery, a strained, frightened look in her big eyes, stood outside.
“I’ve come to explain myself,” she said. “You’ve been very kind, and Mrs. Post—I couldn’t bear to have her know this, Miss Wales. But I owe it to you that you should understand, and then I want you to advise me. Helena wouldn’t come. She has decided what to do, she says—she will leave college at the spring recess. I am as bad as she in a way, and perhaps I ought to leave too. Indeed, I may have to.”
“Begin at the beginning and tell me about it,” urged Betty.
The Mystery nodded. “It began when we were little girls. She and her mother used to spend the summers in our village. Her mother took a fancy to me. She used to tell us that if Helena had my brains or I Helena’s face she should have an ideal daughter. She’s very ambitious. She was always pushing Helena along in her schools—bringing down tutors in the summer to teach her languages and coach her in her theme-work. She let me study with them, too, because she thought my work would inspire Helena. Helena hates to study, and hasn’t much head for it. Her mother had set her heart on her coming to Harding and making a name for herself here. When she heard that I wanted dreadfully to come, she sent for me and offered to pay my expenses if I would help Helena, especially in theme-work.
“I never thought how it would be—it sounded all right—like tutoring. So I promised. Helena insisted that I should live off at the end of nowhere, so she could come to me without any one’s finding it out. I soon saw what she wanted of me—not tutoring, but help. I was to write all her papers, take all her notes and read them to her,—do all her work and see that she got the credit. At the end of last year I got tired of it, and I thought I could pay my own way. But when I spoke to Helena she said she would tell the whole story, and that it would look as black for me as for her. ‘Only I shall go home where no one knows or cares,’ she said, ‘except mother, who can’t defend her plan, and you will stay here—or you’ll stop and teach and never get a decent position, because they won’t recommend a cheat.’ So I’ve kept on. When you asked me to come and live here Helena was furious. She said she couldn’t come to see me here without being seen—of course things have leaked out, and she’s been suspected of getting help, but nothing has ever been proved. I wouldn’t give in—I wanted so to come.
“But I did arrange to have a room away from the others, and I’ve kept the door locked so they wouldn’t come in suddenly and find her here or see a paper I’d written for her to hand in. She gets stupider and lazier all the time, I think. She can’t do the simplest thing for herself now. She had an absurd story ready to explain all this. I told her I wouldn’t help her with it. I’m sick of being the brains of Helena Mason. I want to be myself—to have the use of my own ideas and abilities. I’m tired of selling my brains and my self-respect for a college education that other girls earn easily with their hands. It wasn’t a fair bargain. Of course I shall pay back the money as soon as I can. But whether I go or stay, I shall be free from now on to be myself—not a nonentity sucked dry to help a rich girl get into Dramatic Club and Philosophical and the Cercle Français, and to make a reputation for the brains her mother admires. Now you understand me, Miss Wales. Tell me what to do.”