Katherine was then requested to relate all that she knew about it, whereupon she repeated what she had already told Miss Williams.
"You have corroborated what Miss Wild has stated, and have also exonerated her from any complicity in the affair," Prof. Seabrook observed, when she concluded. "I judge that it must have been confined entirely to the sophomore class. Now we must get down to individuals, if possible. Miss Minturn, did you recognize the voices of those two girls whom you overheard in the hall last night?"
"Truth compels me to say that I did," Katherine replied, a hot flush mounting to her brow.
"Their names, if you please," commanded the principal, briefly.
"I beg that you will excuse me from naming them," she pleaded.
"It is plainly your duty to expose them, Miss Minturn. The affair is of too serious a nature to allow sentiment to thwart discipline and the preservation of law and order," returned the gentleman, in an inflexible tone.
"Pardon me," she said, "but I cannot feel it my duty—at least until—"
"That is equivalent to saying that you will not comply with my request," interposed the professor, his eyes beginning to blaze in view of what he regarded as a defiant attitude.
"No, sir; I could not be so disrespectful," Katherine gently replied. "Please allow me to say that I would have taken no action whatever in the matter but for the sake of saving Miss Wild from being unjustly accused."
Jennie flashed her an adoring look as she said this.