"Is there nothing left stuck in the corners?" asked Gwen, utterly dumbfounded at the defalcation. "Nothing whatever. Look and satisfy yourself." Gwen seized the satchel, and almost turned it inside out in her eagerness, but there was no remaining coin to be found. "Did you give any people checks without receiving the money in return?" enquired Miss Roscoe. "No, certainly not. I was most particular. I didn't let anybody in without paying. If they had no tickets I sold them checks. I don't see how I can be all that amount wrong." "Unfortunately both our reckonings show the same deficit. What I want to know, Gwen, is what has become of this missing nine and sixpence?" "I can't imagine." "But it is your duty to account for it. You alone are responsible; and it is my duty to enquire where it has gone." "Miss Roscoe! You surely don't think I've pocketed it?" broke out Gwen, the drift of the Principal's remarks suddenly dawning upon her. "I say nothing except that it is a very strange circumstance that you cannot produce it. Was the satchel in your own possession the whole of the afternoon?" "Yes--at least--yes, it was!" stammered Gwen, looking very red and confused. The remembrance had just struck her that she had allowed Lesbia to take some change from her bag, and at the same instant Lesbia's extraordinary behaviour of the evening before flashed across her mind. Could there possibly be any connection between the two incidents? The idea was so horrible that she blushed at entertaining it even for a moment. Miss Roscoe glanced at her keenly. "Do you assume the full responsibility for this?" she asked in a strained voice. "Absolutely. Nobody except myself had anything to do with the gate money." The Principal's face, which had been grave before, took a yet sterner expression. "I am sorry, Gwen. Very sorry and most concerned. I thought I could have trusted you entirely. It pains me beyond measure to find you have betrayed my confidence." "But I didn't take that nine and six! I didn't, indeed! I don't know where it has gone; but I haven't got it! How can you accuse me of such a dreadful thing?" blurted out Gwen indignantly. "You can't deny the deficit," returned Miss Roscoe icily. "There is the evidence of the checks and the cash to prove it. As you are not able to account for it, I can only draw my own conclusions. As it happens, I was this very morning made aware of the reason which must have prompted your most dishonourable act." "What do you mean?" cried Gwen with a choke in her voice. For answer Miss Roscoe handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened it nervously. It was a bill from Messrs. Parker & Sons, Glass and China Merchants, to Miss Gwen Gascoyne, for ten shillings "to account rendered", and written at the bottom were the words: "Your immediate settlement will oblige". It seemed such a bolt from the blue that Gwen turned all colours, and her hand trembled till she nearly dropped the paper.