"A PASSERBY."
"Why--why----" stammered Grace, her eyes growing large with wonder.
"I don't understand. I came here at that time, for I looked at the clock as I came in, but I was only here for a second."
Then the truth dawned upon her. "Why, Miss Thompson," she cried, "you surely don't think I tore up your essay?"
"No, Grace, I don't," replied the principal. "But I believe that the one who wrote this note is the one who did do it, and evidently wishes to fasten the guilt upon you. It looks to me as though we had a common enemy. Do you recognize either the paper or the writing?"
"No," replied Grace slowly, shaking her head. "Vertical writing all looks alike. The paper is peculiar. It is note paper, but different from any I ever saw before. It looks like----"
She stopped suddenly, a shocked look creeping into her eyes.
"What is it, Grace?" said Miss Thompson, who had been closely watching her.
"I--just--had a queer idea," faltered Grace.
"If you suspect any one, Grace, it is your duty to tell me," said the principal. "I cannot pass lightly over such a piece of wanton destruction. To clear up this mystery, should be a matter of vital interest to you, too, as this letter is really an insinuation against you."
Grace was silent.
"I am waiting for you, Grace," said the principal. "Will you do as I wish?"
The tears rushed to Grace's eyes. "Forgive me, Miss Thompson," she said tremulously, "but I can tell you nothing."
"You are doing wrong, Grace, in withholding your knowledge," said the older woman rather sternly, "and I am greatly displeased at your stubbornness. Ordinarily I would not ask you to betray any of your schoolmates, but in this instance I am justified, and you are making a serious mistake in sacrificing your duty upon the altar of school-girl honor."
"I am sorry, Miss Thompson," said Grace, striving to steady her voice.
"I value your good opinion above everything, but I can tell you nothing you wish to know. Please, please don't ask me."
"Very well," responded the principal in a tone of cold dismissal, turning to her desk.
With a half-stifled sob, Grace hurried from the room. For the first time, since entering High School, she had incurred the displeasure of her beloved principal, and all for the sake of a girl who was unworthy of the sacrifice. For Grace had recognized the paper. It was precisely the same style of paper on which Eleanor Savell had declined her Thanksgiving invitation.
CHAPTER XXI
BREAKERS AHEAD
The dress rehearsal for "As You Like It" was over. It had been well nigh perfect. The costumes had for the most part been on hand, as the senior class of five years previous had given the same play and bequeathed their paraphernalia to those who should come after. Rosalind's costumes had to be altered to fit Anne, however, on account of her lack of stature. Also the lines in the text where Rosalind refers to her height underwent some changes. The final details having been attended to, Miss Tebbs and Miss Kane found time to congratulate each other on the smoothness of the production, which bade fair to surpass anything of the kind ever before given. There was not a weak spot in the cast. Anne's work had seemed to grow finer with every rehearsal.
She had won the repeated applause of the group of teachers who had been invited to witness this trial performance. Grace, Nora, Eleanor and Miriam had ably supported her and there had been tears of proud joy in Miss Tebbs's eyes as she had watched the clever and spirited acting of these girls.
"Be sure and put your costumes exactly where they belong," called Miss Tebbs as the girls filed off the stage into the dressing room after the final curtain. "Then you will have no trouble to-morrow night. We want to avoid all eleventh-hour scrambling and exciting costume hunts."
Laughing merrily, the girls began choosing places to hang their costumes in the big room off the stage where they were to dress. Anne, careful little soul that she was, piled her paraphernalia neatly in one corner, and taking a slip of paper from her bag wrote "Rosalind" upon it, pinning it to her first-act costume.
"The eternal labeler," said Nora, with her ever-ready giggle, as she watched Anne. "Are you afraid it will run away, little Miss Fussbudget!"
"No; of course not," said Anne, smiling. "I just marked it because----"
"You have the marking habit," finished Jessica. "Come on, girls. Don't tease Anne. Let her put tags on herself if she wants to. Then a certain young man who is waiting outside for her will be sure to recognize her.
Has anyone seen that Allison child? It's time she put in an appearance."
"Just listen to Grandmother Bright," teased Anne. "She is hunting her lost chick, as usual."
With merry laugh and jest the girls prepared for the street. Grace and her friends were among the first to leave, and hurried to the street, where the boys awaited them.
"Hurrah for the only original ranters and barnstormers on exhibition in this country," cried Hippy, waving his hat in the air.
"Cease, Hippopotamus," said Nora. "You are mistaken. We are stars, but we shall refuse to twinkle in your sky unless you suddenly become more respectful."
"He doesn't know the definition of the word," said David.
"How cruelly you misjudge me," said Hippy. "I meant no disrespect. It was a sudden attack of enthusiasm. I get them spasmodically."
"So we have observed," said Nora dryly. "Let's not stand here discussing you all night. Come on up to my house, and we'll make fudge and have things to eat."
"I have my car here," said David. "Pile into it and we'll be up there in a jiffy."
"It's awfully late," demurred Grace. "After ten o'clock."
"Never mind that," said Nora. "Your mother knows you can take care of yourself. You can 'phone to her from my house."
In another minute the young people had seated themselves in the big car and were off.
"Did you see Eleanor's runabout standing there?" Nora asked Grace.
"Yes," replied Grace. "I was rather surprised, too. She hasn't used it much of late."
"How beautiful she looked to-night, didn't she?" interposed Jessica.
"Are you talking of the would-be murderess, who froze us all out Thanksgiving Day?" asked Hippy. "What is her latest crime?"
Grace felt like saying "Destroying other people's property and getting innocent folks disliked," but refrained. She had told no one of her interview with Miss Thompson. Grace knew that the principal was still displeased with her. She was no longer on the old terms of intimacy with Miss Thompson. A barrier seemed to have sprung up between them, that only one thing could remove, but Grace was resolved not to expose Eleanor--not that she felt that Eleanor did not richly deserve it, but she knew that it would mean instant expulsion from school. She believed that Eleanor had acted on the impulse of the moment, and was without doubt bitterly sorry for it, and she felt that as long as Eleanor had at last begun to be interested in school, the thing to do was to keep her there, particularly as Mrs. Gray had recently told her of Miss Nevin's pleasure at the change that the school had apparently wrought in Eleanor.
Could Grace have known what Eleanor was engaged in at the moment she would have felt like exposing her without mercy.
During the first rehearsals Grace, secretly fearing an outbreak on Eleanor's part, had been on the alert, but as rehearsals progressed and Eleanor kept strictly to herself, Grace relaxed her vigilance.
Directly after the chums had hurried out of the hall to meet the boys, Miss Tebbs had decided that opening the dressing room on the other side of the stage would relieve the congestion and insure a better chance for all to dress. Calling to the girls who still remained to move their belongings to that side, Miss Tebbs hurried across the stage to find the janitor and see that the door was at once unlocked. By the time the door was opened and the lights turned on the remaining girls flocked in, their arms piled high with costumes.
Foremost among them was Eleanor. Hastily depositing her own costumes in one corner of the dressing room, she darted across the stage and into the room from which she had just moved her effects.
It was empty. She glanced quickly about. Like a flash she gathered up a pile of costumes marked "Rosalind," covered them with her long fur coat and ran through the hall and down the steps to where her runabout was stationed. Crowding them hastily into the bottom of the machine, she slipped on her coat, made ready her runabout and drove down the street like the wind, not lessening her speed until she reached the drive at "Heartsease."