"We put them there," they said together.
"You!" exclaimed simultaneously every voice in the room except Hilary's, and she was too utterly dumbfounded even to utter that monosyllable.
"It was a joke," said Noel. "Tommy started it really. It was his idea, and he got us to hide the whole of the beastly things here. I am sure we wish we had never seen them. Of course we didn't know the trunk belonged to Miss Carson, or we wouldn't have hidden them in it. We thought it was an old one of mother's that was never used. We would have taken them back to Colonel Baker ages ago, only Tommy, the young idiot! chose to go off to Scotland and took the key with him. We couldn't open the trunk anyhow, though we tried ever so many keys."
"Oh boys, boys!" moaned Mrs. Danvers, "a nice mess you have got yourselves into. The Colonel will be furious. You have made him the laughing stock of the town. He will certainly summons you, and it will get into the papers, and you will certainly be expelled from Osborne and Dartmouth."
"And serve them right too, for a couple of silly young asses!" growled Geoffrey.
"That is all very well," said Hilary, swallowing her intense mortification as well as she could; "but what about this case?" opening it and displaying as she spoke the locket encircled by the string of pearls. "I found it locked up in her dressing bag, and she declares it is hers, although 'To my daughter Margaret' is inscribed inside the locket."
But Geoffrey would not as much as glance at it.
"I think you have behaved disgracefully," he said, turning upon his sister, "and ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. The idea of going prying about in her room."
"I did it in a good cause," said Hilary, who, fully conscious now of the sorry figure she cut, had much ado to keep tears of mortification and rage from coming into her eyes. "How was I to know that the boys had put them into her box and not she herself? It's as much their fault as mine that Miss Carson got accused of taking them."
"Oh, oh, Miss Hilary!" said Edward, "that's rather good from one who not five minutes ago was boasting of having alone and unaided—those were your exact words, I think—brought the criminal to justice."