"Well, she cried a good deal, and I talked, but she has not answered lately," stammered Cathy; "perhaps she is asleep, she complained of feeling giddy and confused;" but Cathy, whose eyes were red with crying, did not add how passionately the child had beaten against the door and implored to be let out. "She was so afraid of the darkness, and she wanted to hold some one's hand." Neither did she add that just before Queenie's ring she had been frightened by a stifled groan, and then a sound as though something heavy had fallen; but her hesitation and evident terror were enough for Queenie, and in another moment she was kneeling outside the door. "Emmie dear! Emmie, my darling! it is I--Queenie; there is nothing to fear--nothing; speak to me just one word, darling, to say you are not so very frightened, and then I will go down and get the key from Fraulein. Emmie, Emmie! do you hear?" shaking the door; but there was no answer. "Stay there, Cathy," whispered Queenie in a hoarse voice; "I am going to Fraulein." Her face was white with apprehension, but the look in her eyes scared Cathy. The girls were huddled together and whispering in knots of twos and threes as she entered the school-room. There was evidently a mutiny, for Fraulein, with heated face and harsh voice, was vainly calling to order. A murmur of "shame! we will tell Miss Titheridge," came to Queenie's ears, but she heeded nothing as she walked up to the table with out-stretched hand. "Give me that key, Fraulein!" The woman looked at her with an expression at once stolid and immovable; the heavy Teutonic face was unusually lowering. Queenie had more than once suspected that Fraulein was addicted to a somewhat free use of stimulant; now as she looked at the inflamed, stupid face she was sure of it. "Meess shall not dictate to me, I am mistress of this school-room to-night; the leetle Meess was naughty, unbearable; she must be punished." "Give me that key at once, or I will break open the door; give me that key, or you will rue it all your life," continued Queenie, sternly. The woman quailed for a moment under that bright indignant glance, and then she looked up with an expression of triumphant cunning. "Do not fatigue yourself, Meess, the key is safe in my pocket; there it will remain until my dear friend, Meess Titheridge, returns; ach nein Meess shall not have it." For a single instant Queenie measured the strong, powerful frame of the woman before her, then she turned from her without a word. "Clarice Williams, Agatha Sinclair, stand by me and be witnesses that I am forced by sheer necessity to do this thing;" and with that she quitted the room. Many of the girls would have followed, but Fraulein ordered them to their seats so savagely that they dared not rebel. As she went up the stairs the door-bell again sounded. Cathy rose with a look of relief on seeing her friend. "Have you got the key, Queenie?"