"If you really believed I'd stolen the sovereign, you were quite right," she remarked briefly. "Anyone who'd done such a thing would have richly deserved that, and worse. I care quite as much as you all for the honour of the house." To Janie alone, the one friend who had taken her part and stood up for her when the whole school was against her, could Honor turn with a sense of absolute confidence; the bond between them seemed closer than ever, and she felt she owed a debt of gratitude that it would be difficult to repay. Janie's joy at this happy ending to what had appeared a scholastic earthquake was extreme; and, though she gave Lettice the credit that was due, she could not help experiencing a little satisfaction at her own share in elucidating the mystery. She had worked hard to clear her friend's name, so it was delightful to reap her reward. The sensation caused by the events of the last few days was soon forgotten by the majority of the girls in the excitement of the examinations. For the next week the whole College lived in a whirl of perpetual effort to marshal scattered facts, or recall forgotten vocabularies. The classrooms, given over to pens, ink, and sheets of foolscap paper, were the abodes of a silence only disturbed by the occasional scratching of a pen, or the sigh of a candidate in the throes of attacking a stiff problem. To Honor the experience was all new. She tried her best, but found it difficult to curtail her statements sufficiently to allow of her answering every question, in spite of Miss Farrar's oft-repeated warning against devoting too much time to one part of the paper. She was, of course, at a great disadvantage, as she had spent only one term at Chessington, and the examinations were on the work of a whole year; but she nevertheless acquitted herself creditably, and actually gained higher marks than several girls who had come to school the preceding September. "I feel as if I'd been in a battle!" she announced, when at length the ordeal was over and the last set of papers handed in. "My fingers are soaked with ink, for my fountain pen leaked atrociously; but it wrote so much quicker than an ordinary one that I didn't dare to abandon it." "You'll soon get the ink off," said Lettice. "Miss Maitland always puts plenty of pieces of pumice stone and slices of lemon in the dressing-room at examination time. I'm sure I've failed in geometry, and I shall be very much surprised if I find I've scraped through in physics." "I feel just as doubtful over English language," said Chatty Burns. "But it's no use worrying ourselves any more; we can't correct mistakes now, whatever stupid ones we may have made." "And we can just have a few peaceful days until the sports," added Lettice.