"And to steal the ones you liked best," added Betty scornfully.
The Blunderbuss gave her a vaguely troubled look. "I didn't think of it that way. Anyway it's all right now. Haven't I given them right back?"
"Suppose we hadn't come in and found you here," put in Eleanor. "Wouldn't you have taken them away?"
"So you are the person who has been stealing jewelry from the campus houses all through this year." Betty's voice grew harder as she remembered the injustice she had so nearly done Georgia and Miss Harrison's self-righteous attack on Eleanor in that dreadful class-meeting.
The Blunderbuss accepted the statement without comment. "They could have had the things back if they'd asked for them," she said. "I couldn't very well give them back if they didn't ask."
"Will you give them back now?" asked Betty, astonishment at the girl's strange behavior gaining on her indignation.
The Blunderbuss nodded vigorously. "Certainly I will. I'll bring them all here to-night. I don't want them for anything. I never wanted them. I'm sure I don't know why I took them. Oh, there's just one thing," she added hastily, "that I can't bring. It isn't with the rest. But I've got everything else all safe and I'll come right after dinner. Good-bye."
[Illustration: THE GIRLS WATCHED HER IN BEWILDERMENT]
The girls watched her go in a daze of bewilderment. Just outside the door she evidently bumped into some one, and her clattering laugh and loud, "Goodness, how you scared me!" sounded as light-hearted and unconcerned as possible.
"How did you ever guess that she was the one?" Eleanor asked at last.
"It just came over me," Betty answered. "But, why, she doesn't seem to care one bit!"
"About running into me?" asked Jean Eastman, appearing suddenly in the doorway. "Has she been doing damage in here, too?" No one answered and Jean gave a quick look about the room, noticing the rummaged drawers, the girls' excited, tragic faces, and the jewelry that Eleanor still had in her hand. Then she made one of her haphazard deductions, whose accuracy was the terror of her enemies and the admiration of her followers.
"Oh, I see--it's more college robber. So our dear Blunderbuss is the thief. I congratulate you, Eleanor, on the beautiful poetic justice of your having been the one to catch her."