Then Billie lifted her head and said quietly:

"Yes, Miss Dill, I was the one who started the trouble. I don't think any of the girls would have thought of it if it hadn't been for me."

A ripple of protest rose behind her, but Miss Dill waved it down angrily.

"Then by your own confession," she said, something of triumph gleaming in her eyes, "you have not only broken all the rules of Three Towers but you have incited the rest of the girls to do likewise. Have you anything to say for yourself?"

"No, Miss Dill." Billie's voice was so low it could hardly be heard.

"You are not even sorry?" Miss Cora went on relentlessly.

"No," said Billie, lifting her head and looking Miss Cora straight in the eyes. "We have been nearly starved since Miss Walters left, and some of the girls have been sick from hunger." Her voice rose a little and the color came back to her face as she flung out a challenge like a flag of war. "I'm sorry, Miss Dill, but if I had to, I would do it all over again."

Miss Cora looked as if she doubted the evidence of her ears, while a murmur of applause went up from the girls. Oh, but they were proud of Billie!

"You have heard what she said," Miss Cora Dill turned to the teachers behind her. "Such insolence can only result in expulsion. Beatrice Bradley, come with me. The rest of you," she turned fiercely upon the other girls, "will go up to your dormitories. To-morrow I will deal with you."

As Billie, dread in her heart at that awful word "expulsion," started toward Miss Cora Dill, Caroline Brant caught her hand and whispered rea.s.suringly in her ear.

"Don't worry," she said. "They won't dare expel you. When Miss Walters hears all about it she will be more than likely to expel them!"

Billie gave her a wan little smile, squeezed her hand gratefully, and was promptly taken into custody by Miss Cora. Then the teachers stood aside while the rest of the girls filed past them upstairs.

In the dormitories all was confusion. Sleep was out of the question, and the girls gathered in excited groups discussing the terrible thing that had happened to them, half wishing for Miss Walters, yet half afraid to have her come back. Suppose she should side with the "Dill Pickles"? Then all would indeed be lost.

But Billie was their chief worry.

"Why didn't she fib about it?" cried one girl, pacing up and down excitedly. "We would all have backed her up. She knew that."

"But Billie doesn't fib," said Vi proudly. "And besides, it wouldn't have done her any good. Amanda and the Shadow had already told, and they were right here in the dorm when we were planning the raid."

Fiercely the girls looked around for the sneaks; but they were nowhere to be seen.

"Probably 'The Pickles' are taking good care of the little darlings,"

sneered Laura. "Oh, how I'd like to get my hands on them!"

"What's the matter, Rose?" asked Caroline Brant suddenly. "Don't you feel good?"

For Rose was sitting on the edge of her bed, her head bowed on her clasped hands. At Caroline's question she raised her head and looked around her miserably.

"No, I don't feel good. I--I have a headache," she said.

The girls regarded her curiously for a minute, and then forgot all about her. They had worse things than headaches to worry about.

Rose did indeed have a headache, but the headache was mostly caused by a heartache. She herself did not quite understand it.

Billie had at last been singled out from all the other girls for punishment, would perhaps be expelled from Three Towers Hall, and where she, Rose, should have been happy about it, she was only miserable.

Of course she had really had no hand in Billie's disgrace--this time.

But she had planned and schemed for it before, and that made her almost as bad in her own eyes as those two wretched sneaks whom all the girls hated and despised. If they could only know what had been in her mind they would hate and despise her, too!

Her head felt hot and her lips were feverish. It was a terrible thing to despise oneself. The only way she could ever put things straight again was to find some way of getting Billie out of her sc.r.a.pe. She must think of a plan!

Suddenly she jumped to her feet, and the girls turned startled eyes upon her.

"I have it!" she cried. "We must get word to Miss Walters. If she could know what an awful fix we're in, she'd come right back. I'm sure she would."

The girls stared for a minute--then seized eagerly on the plan.

"But how can we get word to her if we haven't her address?" Connie Danvers asked. But Rose answered her impatiently.

"I've thought of that," she said, then went on to explain while the girls listened eagerly how she had taken some letters to the mail box for Miss Race, and, happening to glance down, had seen that the top one was addressed to Miss Walters.

Luckily she remembered the address, and now when one of the girls handed her a slip of paper she wrote it down feverishly.

"But how are we going to get word to her?" asked one of the girls, and they looked at each other helplessly. "'The Pickles' won't let anybody outside the Hall, and they'll look over all the mail."

They were still trying to think of a plan when a step in the hall--a step that sounded very much like Miss Ada Dill's firm tread--sent them scattering.

A little later silence settled like a cloud over the dormitories, but few of the girls slept. They were thinking--thinking----

By and by Laura leaned across and whispered to Vi.

"Asleep?" she asked.

"No, I can't sleep," said Vi miserably. "I keep thinking of Billie and where they've put her and--and--everything."

"Well, I've thought of a real plan," whispered Laura mysteriously.

"You have?" cried Vi, sitting up in her turn. "What is it?"

But in the darkness Laura shook her head.

"Not now," she said. "I'll tell you in the morning."

CHAPTER XXIII

A PRISONER OF WAR

It was a bad night for all the girls, but for Billie Bradley it was a nightmare. Miss Cora Dill had thrust her into a little room just big enough to contain a couch, a table, and one or two chairs.

When Billie had asked for a light the door had been slammed in her face and she had heard the key turn in the lock.

So she was a prisoner--and in disgrace. All her dreams had come to that.

Miss Cora had said she would be expelled from Three Towers Hall when Miss Walters heard what she had done.