Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

CHAPTER XIII
THE GIRL IN THE STORM

Ruth Fielding was quite as eager for fun between lessons as either Helen or Jennie, and the prospect of skating on such a large lake as Remona delighted her. The second day following the incident in the chorus class, the ice which had bound Lake Remona was officially pronounced safe.

Gymnasium athletics lost their charm for those girls who were truly active and could skate. There were luxurious damsels who preferred to be pushed about in ice-chairs by more active girls or by hired attendants; but our trio of friends did not look upon that as enjoyment.

Even Jennie Stone was a vigorous skater. After a day or two on the ice, when their ankles had become strong enough, the three made a circuit of Bliss Island – and that was "some skate," to quote Jennie.

The island was more than a mile from the boathouse, and it was five or six miles in circumference. Therefore, the task was quite all of an eight-mile jaunt.

"But 'do or die' is our motto," remarked Helen, as they set forth on this determined journey. "Let's show these pussy girls what it means to have trained at Briarwood."

"That's all right! that's all right!" grumbled Jennie. "But your motto is altogether too grim and significant. Let's limit it. I want to do if I can; but mercy me! I don't want to die yet. You girls have got to stop and rest when I say so, or I won't go at all."

Ruth and Helen agreed. That is why it took them until almost dinner-time to encircle the island. Jennie Stone was determined to rest upon the least provocation.

"We'll be starved to death before we get back," Helen began to complain while they were upon the south side of the island. "I should think you would feel the pinch of privation, Heavy."

"I do," admitted the other hollowly.

"Well, why didn't you escape it by refusing to come, or else by bringing a lunch?" demanded the black-eyed girl.

"No. This is a part of the system," groaned Jennie.

"What system, I'd like to know?" Ruth asked, in surprise.

"System of martyrdom, I guess," sniffed Helen.

"You've said it," agreed the plump girl. "That is the truest word yet spoken. Martyrdom! that is what it means for me."

"What means to you?" snapped Helen, exasperated because she could not understand.

"This dieting and exercising," Jennie said more cheerfully. "I deliberately came so far and without food to see if I couldn't really lose some weight. Do you know, girls, I am so hollow and so tired right now, that I believe I must have lost a few ounces, anyway."

"You ridiculous thing!" laughed Helen, recovering her good nature.

"Should we sacrifice ourselves for your benefit, do you think, Jennie?" Ruth asked.

"Why not? 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' only more so. I need the inspiration of you girls to help me," Jennie declared. "Do you know, sometimes I am almost discouraged?"

"About what?" asked Helen.

"About my weight. I watch the bathroom scales with eagle eye. But instead of coming down by pounds, I only fall by ounces. It is awfully discouraging. And then," added the fleshy girl, "the other day when we had such a scrumptuous dinner – was it Columbus Day? I believe so – I was tempted to eat one of my old-time 'full and plenty' meals, and what do you think?"

"You had the nightmare," said Helen.

"Not a chance! But I went up two pounds and a half– or else the scales were crazy!"

"Girls!" exclaimed Ruth, suddenly. "Do you know it is snowing?"

"My! I never expected that," cried Helen, as a feathery flake lit upon the very point of her pretty nose. "Ow!"

"Well, we'd better go on, I guess," Ruth observed. "Put your best foot forward, please, Miss Jennie."

"I don't know which is my best foot now," complained the heavy girl. "They are both getting lame."

"We'll just have to make you sit down on the ice while we drag you," announced Helen, increasing the length of her stroke.

"Not much you won't!" exclaimed Jennie Stone, "I'm cold enough as it is."

"Shall we take off our skates and walk over the island, girls?" suggested Ruth. "That will save some time and more than a little work for Heavy."

"Don't worry about me," put in Jennie. "I need the exercise. And walking would be worse than skating, I do believe."

It was snowing quite thickly now; but the shore of the island was not far away. The trio hugged it closely in encircling the wooded and hilly piece of land.

"Say!" Helen cried, "we're not the only girls out here to-day."

"Huh?" grunted Jennie, head down and skating doggedly.

"See there, Ruth!" called the black-eyed girl.

Ruth turned her face to one side and looked under the shade of her hand, which she held above her eyes. There was a figure moving along the shore of Bliss Island just abreast of them.

"It's a girl," she said. "But she's not skating."

"Who is it? A freshie?" asked Jennie, but little interested.

Ruth did not reply. She seemed wonderfully interested by the appearance of the girl on shore. She fell behind her mates while she watched the figure.

The snow was increasing; and that with the abruptly rising island, furnished a background for the strange girl which threw her into relief.

At first Ruth was attracted only by her figure. She could not see her face.

"Who can she be? Not one of the girls at Dare Hall – "

This idea spun to nothingness very quickly. No! The figure ashore reminded Ruth Fielding of nobody whom she had seen recently. The feeling, however, that she knew the person grew.

The snow blew sharply into the faces of the skating girls; but she on shore was somewhat sheltered from the gale. The wind was out of the north and west and the highland of the island broke the zest of the gale for the strange girl.

"And yet she isn't strange – I know she isn't," murmured Ruth Fielding, casting another glance back at the figure on the shore.

"Come on, Ruth! Do hurry!" cried Helen, looking back. "Even Heavy is beating you."

Ruth quickened her efforts. The strange girl disappeared, mounting a path it seemed toward the center of the island. Ruth, head bent and lips tightly closed, skated on intent upon her mystifying thoughts.

The trio rounded the island at last. They got the wind somewhat at their backs and on a long slant made for the boathouse landing. It was growing dusk, but there was a fire at the landing that beckoned them on.

"Glad it isn't any farther," Helen panted. "This snow is gathering so fast it clogs one's skates."

"Oh, I must be losing pounds!" puffed Jennie Stone. "I bet none of my clothes will fit me to-morrow. I shall have to throw them all away."

"Oh, Heavy!" giggled Helen. "That lovely new silk?"

"Oh – well – I shall take that in!" drawled Jennie.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Ruth, in a most startling way.

"Goodness me! are you hurt?" demanded Helen.

"What you got? A cramp?" asked Jennie, quite as solicitous.

"I know now who that girl looked like," declared Ruth.

"What girl?" rejoined Helen Cameron. "The one over yonder, on the other side of the island?"

"Yes. She looks just like that Maggie who came to the mill, Helen. You remember, don't you? The girl I left to help Aunt Alvirah when I came to college."

"Well, for the land's sake!" said Jennie Stone. "If she's up there at the Red Mill, how can she possibly be down here, too? You're talking out of order, Miss Fielding. Sit down!"

CHAPTER XIV
"OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT"

Ruth Fielding could not get that surprising, that almost unbelievable, discovery out of her mind.

It seemed ridiculous to think that girl could be Maggie, "the waif," she had seen on Bliss Island. Aunt Alvirah had written Ruth a letter only a few days before and in it she said that Maggie was very helpful and seemed wholly content.

"Only," the little old housekeeper at the Red Mill wrote, "I don't know a mite more about the child now than I did when Mr. Tom Cameron and our Ben brought her in, all white and fainty-like."

The girls had to hurry on or be late to dinner. But the very first thing Ruth did when she reached their rooms in Dare Hall was to look up Aunt Alvirah's letter and see when it was dated and mailed.

"It's obvious," Ruth told herself, "that Maggie could have reached here almost as soon as the letter if she had wished to. But why come at all? If it was Maggie over on that island, why was she there?"

Of course, these ruminations were all in private. Ruth knew better than to take her two close friends into her confidence. If she did the mystery would have been the chief topic of conversation after dinner, instead of the studies slated for that evening.

An incident occurred, however, at dinner which served to take Ruth's mind, too, from the mystery. There were a number of seniors and juniors quartered at Dare Hall. Nor were all the seniors table-captains at dinner.

This evening the dining hall had filled early. Perhaps the brisk air and their outdoor exercise had given the girls sharper appetites than usual. It had the three girls from Briarwood. They were wearied after their long skate around the island and as ravenous as wolves. They could scarcely wait for Miss Comstock, at the head of their particular table, to begin eating so they might do so, too.

And just at this moment, as the pleasant bustle of dinner began, and the lightly tripping waitresses were stepping hither and yon with their trays, the door opened and a single belated girl entered the dining hall.

As though the entrance of this girl were expected, a hush fell over the room. Everybody but Jennie looked up, their soup spoons poised as they watched Rebecca Frayne walk down the long room to her place at the housekeeper's table.

"Sh!" hissed Helen, admonishing Jennie Stone.

"What's the matter?" demanded the fleshy girl in surprise. "Is my soup noisy? I'll have to train it better."

But nobody laughed. All eyes were fastened on the girl who had made herself so obnoxious to the seniors and the juniors of Ardmore. She sat down and a waitress put her soup before her. Before poor Rebecca could lift her spoon there was a stir all over the room. Every senior and junior (and there were more than half a hundred in the dining hall) arose, save those acting as table-captains or monitors. The rustle of their rising was subdued; they murmured their excuses to the heads of their several tables in a perfectly polite manner; and not a glance from their eyes turned toward Rebecca Frayne. But as they walked out of the dining hall, their dinners scarcely tasted, the slight put upon the freshman who would not obey was too direct and obvious to be mistaken.

Even Jennie Stone was at length aroused from her enjoyment of the very good soup.

"What do you know about that?" she demanded of Ruth and Helen.

Ruth said not a word. To tell the truth she felt so sorry for Rebecca Frayne that she lost taste for her own meal, hungry though she had been when she sat down.

How Rebecca herself felt could only be imagined. She had already shown herself to be a painful mixture of sensitiveness and carelessness of criticism that made Ruth Fielding, at least, wonder greatly.

Now she ate her dinner without seeming to observe the attitude the members of the older classes had taken.

"Cracky!" murmured Jennie, in the middle of dinner. "She's got all the best of it – believe me! The seniors and the juns go hungry."

"For a principle," snapped the girl beside her, who chanced to be a sophomore.

"Well," said Jennie, smiling, "principles are far from filling. They're a good deal like the only part of the doughnut that agreed with the dyspeptic – the hole. Please pass the bread, dear. Somebody must have eaten mine – and it was nicely buttered, too."

"Goodness! nothing disturbs your calm, does it, Miss Stone?" cried another girl.

Few of the girls in the dining hall, however, could keep their minds or their gaze off Rebecca Frayne. In whispers all through the meal she was discussed by her close neighbors. Girls at tables farther away talked of the situation frankly.

And the consensus of opinion was against her. It was the general feeling that she was entirely in the wrong. The very law which she had essayed to flaunt was that which had brought the freshmen together as a class, and was welding them into a homogeneous whole.

"She's a goose!" exclaimed Helen Cameron.

And perhaps this was true. It did look foolish. Yet Ruth felt that there must be some misunderstanding back of it all. It should be explained. The girl could not go on in this way.

"First we know she'll be packing up and leaving Ardmore," Ruth said worriedly.

"She'll leave nobody in tears, I guess," declared one girl within hearing.

"But she's one of us – she's a freshman!" Ruth murmured.

"She doesn't seem to desire our company or friendship," said another and more thoughtful girl.

"And she won't pack up in a hurry," drawled Jennie, still eating. "Remember all those bags and that enormous trunk she brought?"

"But, say," began Helen, slowly, "where are all the frocks and things she was supposed to bring with her? We supposed she'd be the peacock of the class, and I don't believe I've seen her in more than three different dresses and only two hats, including that indescribably brilliant tam."

Ruth said nothing. She was thinking. She planned to get out of the dining hall at the same time Rebecca did, but just as the dessert was being passed the odd girl rose quickly, bowed her excuses to the housekeeper, and almost ran out of the hall.

"She was crying!" gasped Ruth, feeling both helpless and sympathetic.

"I wager she bit her tongue, then," remarked Jennie.

Ruth hurried through her dessert and left the dining hall ahead of most of the girls. She glanced through the long windows and saw that it was still snowing.

"I wonder if that girl is over on the island yet?" she reflected as she ran upstairs.

Her first thought just then was of an entirely different girl. She went to Rebecca's door and knocked. She knocked twice, then again. But no answer was returned. No light came through the keyhole, or from under the door; yet Ruth felt sure that Rebecca Frayne was in the room, and weeping. It was a situation in which Ruth Fielding longed to help, yet there seemed positively nothing she could do as long as the stubborn girl would not meet her half way. With a sigh she went to the study she and Helen jointly occupied.

Before switching on the light she went to one of the windows that looked out on the lake. Bliss Island was easily visible from this point. The snow was still falling, but not heavily enough to obstruct her vision much. The white bulk of the island rose in the midst of the field of snow-covered ice. It seemed nearer than it ordinarily appeared.

As Ruth gazed she saw a spark of light on the island, high up from the shore, but evidently among the trees, for it was intermittent. Now it was visible and again only a red glow showed there. She was still gazing upon this puzzling light when Helen opened the door.

"Hello, Ruthie!" she cried. "All in the dark? Oh! isn't the outside world beautiful to-night?"

She came to the window and put her arm about Ruth's waist.

"See how solemnly the snow is falling – and the whole world is white," murmured the black-eyed girl. "'Oft in the stilly night' – Or is it 'Oft in the silly night'?" and she laughed, for it was not often nor for long that the sentiment that lay deep in Helen's heart rose to the surface. "Oh! What's that light over there, Ruth?" she added, with quick apprehension.

"That is what I have been looking at," Ruth said.

"But you don't tell me what it is!" cried Helen.

"Because I don't know. But I suspect."

"Suspect what?"

"That it is a campfire," said Ruth. "Yes. It seems to be in one spot. Only the wind makes the flames leap, and at one time they are plainly visible while again they are partly obscured."

"Who ever would camp over on Bliss Island on a night like this?" gasped Helen.

"I don't see why you put such mysteries up to me," returned Ruth, with a shrug. "I'm no prophet. But – "

"But what?"

"Do you remember that girl we saw on the island this afternoon?"

"Goodness! Yes."

"Well, mightn't it be she, or a party she may be with?"

"Campers on the island in a snow storm? No girls from this college would be so silly," Helen declared.

"I'm not at all sure she was an Ardmore girl," said Ruth, reflectively.

"Who under the sun could she be, then?"

"Almost anybody else," laughed Ruth. "It is going to stop snowing altogether soon, Helen. See! the moon is breaking through the clouds."

"It will be lovely out," sighed Helen. "But hard walking."

Ruth gestured towards their two pairs of snowshoes crossed upon the wall. "Not on those," she said.

"Oh, Ruthie! Would you?"

"All we have to do is to tighten them and sally forth."

"Gracious! I'd be willing to be Sally Fifth for a spark of fun," declared Helen, eagerly.

"How about Heavy?" asked Ruth, as Helen hastened to take down the snowshoes which both girls had learned to use years before at Snow Camp, in the Adirondacks.

"Dead to the world already, I imagine," laughed Helen. "I saw her to her room, and I believe she was so tired and so full of dinner that she tumbled into bed almost before she got her clothes off. You'd never get her out on such a crazy venture!"

Helen was as happy as a lark over the chance of "fun." The two girls skilfully tightened the stringing of the shoes, and then, having put on coats, mittens, and drawn the tam-o'-shanters down over their ears, they crept out of their rooms and hastened downstairs and out of the dormitory building.

There was not a moving object in sight upon the campus or the sloping white lawns to the level of the frozen lake. The two chums thrust their toes into the straps of their snowshoes and set forth.

CHAPTER XV
AN ODD ADVENTURE

Six inches or more of snow had fallen. It was feathery and packed well under the snowshoes. The girls sank about two inches into the fleecy mass and there the shoes made a complete bed for themselves and the weight of their wearers.

"You know what I'd love to do this winter?" said Helen, as they trudged on.

"What, my dear?" asked Ruth, who seemed much distraught.

"I'd like to try skiing. The slope of College Hill would be just splendiferous for that! Away from the observatory to the lake – and then some!"

"We'll start a skiing club among the freshies," Ruth said, warmly accepting the idea. "Wonder nobody has thought of it before."

"Ardmore hasn't waked up yet to all its possibilities," said Helen, demurely. "But this umpty-umph class of freshmen will show the college a thing or two before we pass from out its scholastic halls."

"Question!" cried Ruth, laughing. Then: "There! you can see that light again."

"Goodness! You're never going over to that island?" cried Helen.

"What did we come out for?" asked Ruth. "And scamp our study hour?"

"Goodness!" cried Helen, again, "just for fun."

"Well, it may be fun to find out just who built that fire and what for," said Ruth.

"And then again," objected her chum, "it may be no fun at all, but serious."

"I have a serious reason for finding out – if I can," Ruth declared.

"What is it, dear?"

"I'll tell you later," said Ruth. "Follow me now."

"If I do I'll not wear diamonds, and I may get into trouble," objected Helen.

"You've never got into very serious trouble yet by following my leadership," laughed Ruth. "Come on, Fraid-cat."

"Ain't! But we don't know who is over there. Just to think! A camp in the snow!"

"Well, we have camped in the snow ourselves," laughed Ruth, harking back to an adventure at Snow Camp that neither of them would ever be likely to forget.

They scuffed along on the snowshoes, soon reaching the edge of the lake. Nobody was about the boathouse, for the ice would have to be swept and scraped by the horse-drawn machines before the girls could go skating again.

The moon was pushing through the scurrying clouds, and the snow had ceased falling.

"Look back!" crowed Helen. "Looks as though two enormous animals had come down the hillside, doesn't it?"

"The girls will wake up and view our tracks with wonder in the morning," said Ruth, with a smile. "Perhaps they'll think that some curious monsters have visited Ardmore."

"That would cause more wonderment than the case of Rebecca Frayne. What do you suppose is finally going to happen to that foolish girl?"

"I really cannot guess," Ruth returned, shaking her head sadly. "Poor thing!"

"Why! she can't be poor," gasped Helen. "Look at all those trunks she brought with her to Ardmore. And her dresses are tremendously fancy – although we've not seen many of them yet."

Ruth stared at her chum for a moment without replying. It was right there and then that she came near to guessing the secret of Rebecca Frayne's trouble. But she forbore to say anything about it at the time, and went on beside her chum toward the white island, much disturbed in her mind.

Now and then they caught sight of the dancing flames of the campfire. But when they were nearer the island, the hill was so steep that they lost sight completely of the light.

"Suppose it's a man?" breathed Helen, suddenly, as they began to climb the shore of Bliss Island.

"He won't eat us," returned Ruth.

"No. They don't often. Only cannibals, and they are not prevalent in this locality," giggled Helen. "But if it is a man – "

"Then we'll turn around and go back," said Ruth, coolly. "I haven't come out here to get acquainted with any male person."

"Bluie! Suppose he's a real nice boy?"

"There's no such an animal," laughed Ruth. "That is, not around here at the present moment."

"Oh yes. I see," Helen rejoined drily. "The nearest nice one is at the Seven Oaks Military Academy."

"So you say," Ruth said demurely. "But if it were Tom?"

"Dear old Tom and some of his chums!" cried Helen. "Wouldn't it be great? This Adamless Eden is rather palling on me, Chum. The other girls have visitors, but our friends are too far away."

"Hush!" advised Ruth. "Whoever it is up there will hear you."

Helen was evidently not at all enamored of this adventure. She lagged behind a little. Yet she would not allow Ruth to go on alone to interview the mysterious camper.

"I tell you what," the black-eyed girl said, after a moment and in a whisper. "I believe that fire is up near the big boulder we looked at – you remember? The Stone Face, do they call it?"

"Quite possibly," Ruth rejoined briskly. "Come on if you're coming. I'm sure the Stone Face won't hurt us."

"Not unless it falls on us," giggled Helen.

The grove of big trees that covered this part of the hillside was open, and the chums very easily made their way toward the fire, even on snowshoes. But the shoes naturally made some noise as they scuffed over the snow, and in a minute Ruth stopped and slipped her feet out of the straps, motioning Helen to do the same. They wore overshoes so there was no danger of their getting their feet wet in the snow.

Hand in hand, Ruth and Helen crept forward. They saw the fire flickering just before them. There was a single figure between the fire and the very boulder of which Helen had spoken.

Reaching the edge of the grove the girls gazed without discovery at the camp in the snow. The boulder stood in a small open space, and it was so high and bulky that it sheltered the fire and the camper quite comfortably. As Ruth had suspected, the latter was the girl she had seen walking upon the southern shore of Bliss Island. She knew her by her figure, if not by her face, which was at the moment hidden.

"She's alone," whispered Helen, making the words with her lips more than with her voice.

"What can she be doing out here?" was the black-eyed girl's next demand.

Her chum put out a hand in a gesture of warning and at once walked out of the shelter of the trees and approached the fire. Helen lingered behind. After all, it was so strange a situation that she did not feel very courageous.

The moon had quite broken through the clouds now and as Ruth drew nearer to the fire and the girl, her shadow was projected before her upon the snow. The girl who looked like Maggie suddenly espied this shadow, raised her head, and leaped up with a cry.

"Don't be frightened, Maggie," said Ruth. "It's only us two girls."

"My – my name is – isn't Maggie," stammered the strange girl.

And sure enough, having once seen her closely, Ruth Fielding saw that she was quite wrong in her identification. This was not the girl who had drifted down the Lumano River to the Red Mill and taken refuge with Aunt Alvirah.

This was a much more assertive person than Maggie – a girl with plenty of health, both of body and mind. Maggie impressed one as being mentally or nervously deficient. Not so this girl who was camping here in the snow on Bliss Island. Yet there was a resemblance to Maggie in the figure of the stranger, and Ruth noted a resemblance in her features, too.

"My goodness me!" she said, laughing pleasantly. "If you're not our Maggie you look near enough like her to be her sister."

"Well, I haven't any sister in that college," said the strange girl, shortly. "You're from Ardmore, aren't you?"

"Yes," Ruth said, Helen now having joined them. "And we saw your light – "

"My what?" demanded the camping girl, who was warmly, though plainly dressed.

"Your campfire. You see," explained Ruth, finding it rather difficult after all to talk to this very self-possessed girl, "we skated around the island to-day – "

"I saw you," said the stranger gruffly. "There were three of you."

"Yes. And I thought you looked like Maggie, then."

"Isn't this Maggie one of you?" sharply demanded the stranger.

"She's a girl whom – whom I know," Ruth said quickly. "A really nice girl. And you do look like her. Doesn't she, Helen?"

"Why – yes – something like," drawled Helen.

"And did you have to come out here to see if I were your friend?" asked the other girl.

"When I saw the campfire – yes," Ruth admitted. "It seemed so strange, you know."

"What seemed strange?" demanded the girl, very tartly. It was plain that she considered their visit an intrusion.

"Why, think of it yourself," Ruth cried, while Helen sniffed audibly. "A girl camping alone on this island – and in a snowstorm."

"It isn't snowing now," said the girl, smiling grimly.

"But it was when we saw the fire at first," Ruth hastened to say. "You know yourself you would be interested."

"Not enough to come clear out here – must be over a mile! – to see about it," was the rejoinder. "I usually mind my own business."

"So do we, you may be sure!" spoke up Helen, quick to take offence. "Come away, Ruth."

But the girl of the Red Mill was not at all satisfied. She said, frankly:

"I do wish that you would tell us why you are here? Surely, you won't remain all night in this lonely place? There is nobody else on the island, is there?"

"I should hope not!" exclaimed the girl. "Only you two busybodies."

"But, really, we came because we were interested in what went on here. It seems so strange for a girl, alone – "

"You've said that before," was the dry reply. "I am a girl alone. I am here on my own business. And that isn't yours."

"Oh!" ejaculated Helen, angrily.

"Well, if you don't like being spoken to plainly, you needn't stay," the strange girl flung at her.

"I see that very well," returned Helen, tossing her head. "Do come away, Ruth."

"Ha!" exclaimed the strange girl, suddenly looking at Ruth more intently. "Are you called Ruth?"

"Yes. Ruth Fielding is my name."

"Oh!" and the girl's face changed in its expression and a little flush came into her cheeks. "I've – I've heard of you."

"Indeed! How?" cried Ruth, eagerly. She felt that this girl must really have some connection with Maggie at the mill, she looked so much like the waif.

"Oh," said the other girl slowly, looking away, "I heard you wrote picture plays. I saw one of them. That's all."

Ruth was silent for a moment. Helen kept tugging at her arm and urging her to go.

"We – we can do nothing for you?" queried the girl of the Red Mill at last.

"You can get off the island – that's as much as I care," said the strange girl, with a harsh laugh. "You're only intruding where you're not wanted."

"Well, I do declare!" burst out Helen again. "She is the most impolite thing. Do come away, Ruthie."

"We really came with the best intentions," Ruth added, as she turned away with her chum. "It – it doesn't look right for a girl to be alone at a campfire on this island – and at night, too."

"I sha'n't stay here all night," the girl said shortly. "You needn't fret. If you want to know, I just built the fire to get warm by before I started back."

"Back where?" Ruth could not help asking.

"That you don't know – and you won't know," returned the strange girl, and turned her back upon them.