“Be silent,” commanded the principal. “Miss Dale, if this ordeal is too much for you—you may leave the room!”
Dorothy was shaking and sobbing. Even permission to leave the room sounded to her like her expulsion in disgrace from Glenwood.
Miss Higley, one of the teachers, saw Dorothy’s plight, and took her arm as she left the room. Then the investigation was continued. The article was read through, and at each new paragraph Tavia gasped audibly. Who could have written, or said such things about dear, quiet, kind Dorothy? The article fairly reeked with flashy insinuations.
When the teacher finished Mrs. Pangborn arose from her chair. Her face was paler than ever.
“I feel,” she began, “that the honor of Glenwood has been besmirched, and I demand to know at once who is responsible in any way for the publication of such libelous nonsense!”
There was no answer made to the peremptory order.
“Octavia Travers, as you are Dorothy’s most intimate friend, I will call upon you first to ask if you know anything of this?”
“All I know,” replied Tavia in a trembling voice, “is that when I unpacked, I had a picture of Dorothy. I placed it directly back of a cushion on my bureau. When I went out of the room it was there; when I came back half an hour later it was gone.”
“And you think this,” showing Tavia the likeness in the paper, “is taken from that?” asked Mrs. Pangborn.
“I am sure of it, for it is the only picture in that pose that Dorothy had. She had three taken and two were sent to relatives at a distance.”