"Susan, dear Susan, you are good, and I love you! I was horrid about the editorship... You would have been far better than I. This is my punishment--I have brought it on my own head." Her voice was so sweet, her eyes so liquid and loving, she drew herself up and marched to her doom with so gallant an air, that her faithful admirer thought instinctively of the martyrs of old. She turned and ran hurriedly upstairs. Meantime Miss Drake sat looking towards the door with an impatient frown. The frown deepened at sight of Dreda's empty hands, and she tapped on the table with the end of her pencil. Dreda's heart sank still further at the sound which Miss Drake's pupils had learnt to associate with their blackest hours. "You have kept me waiting for ten minutes, Dreda. Where is your manuscript? I have no time to waste." "I--I--can't--I can't find it, Miss Drake." Miss Drake leant back in her chair and became in a moment a monument of outraged dignity. Looking at her, it was impossible to believe that one had even ventured on the liberty of calling her by so familiar an epithet as "The Duck." She turned her long neck from side to side, elevated her eyebrows, and cleared her throat in an ominous manner. "I am afraid I don't understand. You told me a few minutes ago that everything was ready." "So it was. In my desk. I left it there last night--I went to find it just now, and--it's gone! Disappeared. I can't _think_ what has happened. It was bound like a book. It looked beautiful. It's not my fault!" "Nonsense, Etheldreda!" cried Miss Drake sharply. "If you had put it in your desk, it would be there still. This is just another example of your careless, unmethodical habits. You have put the book in some unlikely, out-of-the-way corner, and have forgotten all about it. I feared some _contretemps_ of the kind, and was much relieved when you told me that all was ready. I am very much disappointed and annoyed!" "Miss Drake, it _was_ there! I'm absolutely positive. I never was surer of anything in my life than that I left it there last night, and saw it again this morning." Miss Drake shrugged her shoulders expressively. "Extravagant assertions do not prove anything, Etheldreda. In a case of this sort I judge by previous experience. I have repeatedly warned you about your careless habits, but apparently without success. In this case you had a responsibility to fulfil for others as well as yourself, which should have made you doubly careful. You had better continue your search in the other rooms." "It is no good, Miss Drake. The book _was_ in the desk." Dreda kept her place stolidly, and there was a settled conviction upon her face which Miss Drake was quick to note. She watched the girl in silence for several moments, her brow knitted in thought, then suddenly her expression softened and her voice regained its habitual kindly tone.