"Ah, but it is you who are the great spy!" scornfully exclaimed Adrienne. "There is no longer the mystery. So you must have listened often to Ethel and myself as we privately talked. Have you then no shame to be thus so small--so contemptible?" "No, I haven't. I----" Elsie's attempt to brazen things out ended almost as soon as it began. Her guilty, shifting gaze had come to rest on Norma's grave, sweet face. It wore an expression of wondering pity. Elsie turned and bolted straight for her couch bed. She threw herself downward upon it, beating the pillows with her clenched fists, in a fury of tempestuous chagrin. "I think we'd best go, girls." It was Norma who spoke. "Alicia will soon be in. I don't believe we'd care to have even her know about this. Perhaps it would be just as well for us to forget that it's happened." This charitable view of the matter brought Elsie's head from the pillow with a jerk. She sat up and stared hard at Norma, as if unable to credit the latter's plea for clemency in her behalf. "I am satisfied to have thus solved a mystery. Now I wish to forget it." Adrienne made a sweeping gesture, as though to blot out the disagreeable incident with a wave of her hand. "It certainly wouldn't be a pleasant memory," dryly agreed Judith. "Anyhow, we know now something we've wanted to know for a long time. That's about all that one feels like saying, except that one hopes it won't happen again." "I guess it won't. Let's go, girls," was all that Ethel said. Without another word the quartette turned to the door, leaving Elsie to her own dark meditations. She could hardly believe that she had thus easily escaped. It appeared that these girls whom she had been so sure she despised, had no mind for retaliation. They were simply disgusted with her. For the first time, a dim realization of her own unworthiness forced itself upon Elsie. It was not strong enough to impel her to run after those who had just disappeared and apologize for her fault. Nevertheless, Adrienne's accusing question, "Have you then no shame to be thus so small; so contemptible?" rang in her ears. It dawned painfully upon her that she _was_ ashamed of herself. More, that she was done with eavesdropping for good and all. Early in the year she had stumbled upon the discovery that the register in the dress closet could be efficiently used as a listening post. Its position, low in the wall between the two closets, made it possible for her to hear plainly the conversation of those in the next room when both sides of the register stood open. This state of matters had existed when first she made the discovery. More, the side opening into the dress closet belonging to Adrienne and Ethel had remained open.