Then with a whirl she was across the room, out of the door and up the stairs to Study 10, which she entered like a cyclone and rushed across into her bedroom, slamming and locking the door. What mental processes took place behind that locked door her astonished room-mates, who had been eagerly awaiting her return, could not even guess, and dared not venture to inquire. Not a sound came from the room. "What do you suppose has happened?" asked Sally breathlessly. "Something a good deal more serious than we have any idea of. Beverly Ashby is not the kind of girl to look or act like that without a mighty good cause. Did you notice her face? It frightened me," was Aileen's awed reply. "What can we do?" asked Sally in deep distress. "Not one single, solitary thing, and that's the very worst of it. We don't even know what has happened," and the two girls began to prepare for bed in a bewildered sort of way. Meanwhile down in that perfectly appointed study a very dazed woman sat rigid and silent. For the very first time in all her life she had encountered a will stronger than her own, had met in the person of an individual only a quarter of her own age a force which had literally and figuratively swept her off her feet and set at naught a resolution which she believed to be indomitable. And worst of all, it had all come to pass because she had lost her self-control. Up to her own outbreak Miss Woodhull was forced to admit that Beverly had been absolutely courteous. It was purely her own act which had precipitated that climax. For fully half an hour she sat as one stunned, then she said, and the words almost hissed from her colorless lips: "I shall make an example of her! She shall be expelled in disgrace!" though then and there she resolved that none should ever learn of that final scene, and--well--somehow, though she could not explain her conviction, she knew that the outside world would never learn of it through Beverly. CHAPTER XVII IN THE WEE SMA' HOURS When Beverly swept into her room her thoughts were like a seething cauldron; One instant one impression boiled to the surface, only to be submerged the very next by others surging to the top. She could not think connectedly. Everything seemed jumbled pell mell in her brains. Just one incident took definite shape: She had been shaken like a naughty child and told that she was lying. And all because every instinct of honor and justice forbade her betraying a class-mate, even though she entertained for her little less than contempt. And the effect of Miss Woodhull's act was very much as though a man had deliberately walked up to Admiral Seldon, accused him of lying and slapped his face.