ON THE GRILL.
Not a word did Molly say to Nance or the unsuspecting Judy next morning
about her appointment with President Walker.
"Don't forget Latin versification at ten," Nance had cautioned her as
she left the sitting room a quarter before ten.
Molly had forgotten it and everything else except the matter in hand,
but the President's word was law and she prepared to obey and skip the
lecture.
The President was waiting for her in the little study. No one was about
and an ominous quiet pervaded the whole place.
"Sit down," said Miss Walker, without replying to Molly's greeting of
good morning. "So it's you, is it, who has been wandering about the
grounds at night in a gray dressing gown, scaring the students? I need
not tell you how disgusted and grieved I am, Miss Brown."
Molly turned as white as a sheet. She had never dreamed that Miss Walker
suspected her of being the campus ghost.
But she answered steadily:
"You are mistaken, Miss Walker. The ghost chased Nance and me the other
night when we were coming back from the village. We were really
frightened. I suppose it's some insane person."
"Then what were you doing on the campus at that hour, and where did you
get that ladder?"
Molly turned her wide blue eyes on the President with reproachful
protest, and Miss Walker suddenly looked down at the blotter on the
desk.
"Answer my question, Miss Brown," she asked more gently.
How could Molly explain without telling on
Judy, and yet did not that reckless, silly Judy deserve to be told on?
Suddenly two tears trickled down her cheeks. She let them roll unheeded
and clasped her hands convulsively in her lap.
"I insist on an answer to my question, Miss Brown," repeated the
President, without looking up. Molly pressed her lips together to keep
back the sobs.
"I never saw the ladder until a few minutes before you did," she
answered hoarsely. "I--oh, Miss Walker, you make it very hard," she
burst out suddenly, leaning on the table and burying her face in her
hands.
And then the most surprising thing happened. The President rose quickly
from her chair, hurried over to where Molly was sitting with bowed head
and drew the girl to her as tenderly as Molly's own mother might have
done.
"There, there, my darling child," she said soothingly. "I haven't the
heart to torture you any longer. I know, of course, that it was your
friend, Miss Kean, who was at the bottom of last night's performance,
and as usual you came down to help her when she fell. I only wanted you
to tell me exactly what you knew."
The truth is, the President had tried an experiment on Molly and the
experiment had failed, and no one was more pleased than Miss Walker
herself in the failure. She liked to see her girls loyal to each other.
But things had not been going well at Wellington that autumn. There was
an undercurrent of mischief in the air, a dangerous element, carefully
hidden, and still slowly undermining the standards of Wellington. Miss
Walker was very much enraged over the rumor that the ghost of her
beloved sister had been seen wandering about the campus. This was too
much. Her Irish maid had repeated the story to her and she had
determined to lay that ghost without the assistance of the night
watchman or any one else.
The surprise of first being stretched on the grill and then embraced by
the President of Wellington College brought Molly to herself like a
shock of cold water. She looked up into the older woman's face and
smiled and the two sat down side by side on a little sofa, the President
still holding Molly's hand. There might be some who could resist the
piteous look in those blue eyes, but not President Walker.
"I'm afraid I'm just a weak old person," she said to herself, giving the
hand a little squeeze and then releasing it.
"Judy wasn't the ghost, either, Miss Walker," said Molly, glad to be
able to defend her friend on safe grounds. "The night we were chased
Judy was in our rooms all the time. Last night was the first time she
had ever done anything so foolish. It was only because a girl she goes
with bet she wouldn't. It was the same girl that made her dye her hair,"
Molly added, without any feeling of disloyalty.
"Ahem! And who is this young woman who has such a bad influence on Miss
Kean?"
Molly flushed. Was she to be placed on the grill again? But after all
there was no harm in telling the name of the girl who had brought all
Judy's trouble on her.
"Adele Windsor."
"And what do you know of her?"
"I don't know anything about her except that she has fascinated Judy."
"And Judy must be punished," mused the President. "Judy is a very
difficult character and she must be brought to her senses if she expects
to remain at Wellington."
"Judy loves Wellington, indeed she does, Miss Walker. It's only that she
has got into a wrong way of thinking this year. I've heard her tell
freshmen how splendid it was here and how they would grow to love it
like all the rest of us."
"She has not been doing well at all. She never studies. You see I know
all about my girls."
"You didn't know," went on Molly, "that the Jubilee entertainment was
all Judy's idea. She gave it to Adele Windsor--I don't know why--just
because she was in one of her obstinate moods, but I heard her plan out
the whole thing the opening night of college--and it was all for the
glory of Wellington."
The President's face softened.
"Molly," she said, as if she had always called the young girl by her
first name, "do you wish very much to save your friend?"
"Oh, I do, I do. I can't think of any sacrifice I wouldn't make to keep
Judy from being----" she paused and lowered her eyes. Was Miss Walker
thinking of expelling Judy? But Miss Walker was not that kind of a
manager. She often treated her erring girls very much as a doctor treats
his patients with a few doses of very nasty but efficacious medicine.
"What is your opinion of what had best be done, then? You know her
better than I do. What do you advise?"
Molly was amazed.
"Me? You ask my advice?" she asked.
The President nodded briskly.
"Well, the best way to bring Judy to her senses is to give her a good
scare and let it come out all right in the end."
The President smiled.
"You're one of the wisest of my girls," she said, "now, run along. If
I've made you miss a lecture I'm sorry."
"It _will_ come out all right in the end, Miss Walker?" asked Molly,
turning as she reached the door.
"I promise," answered the other, smiling again as if the question
pleased her.
And so Molly escaped from the grill feeling really very happy, certainly
much happier than when she entered the office.
Late that evening while Molly and Nance were preparing to take a walk
before supper, Judy rushed into the room. There was not a ray of color
in her face and her hair stood out all over her head as if it had been
charged with electricity.
"Oh, Molly, Molly," she cried, "did you know the President had overheard
everything that was said last night? She was at the foot of the ladder
all the time. You are not implicated, I saw to that, and I've not told
where I got the ladder. I simply said some one had given it to me. No
one is in it but me. But I'm in it deep. Girls, I've lost out. It's all
over. I've got to go. Oh, heavens, what a fool I've been."
Judy flung herself on the divan and buried her face in the pillows.
For a moment Molly almost lost faith in the President's promise.
"What do you mean when you say you must go, Judy?" she asked.
"It can't be true," burst out Nance, whose love for Judy sometimes
clothed that young woman's sins in a garment of light.
"Not expelled?" added Molly, in a whisper.
"No, no, not that; but suspended. I can come back just before mid-years,
but don't you see the trick? How can I pass my exams then? And Mama and
Papa, what will they think? And, oh, the Jubilee and all of you and
Wellington? Molly, I've been a wicked idiot and some of my sins have
been against you. I was jealous about that Jimmy Lufton because he had
seemed to be my property and you took him away. And, Nance, I was mad
with you because you were always preaching. I didn't really like Adele
Windsor. I think she is horrid. She's malicious and she makes trouble.
I've found that out, but she got me in her toils somehow----"
And so poor Judy rambled on, confessing her sins and moaning like a
person in mortal pain. She had worked herself into a fever, her face was
hot and she looked at the girls with burning, unseeing eyes.
"Papa will be so disappointed," she went on. "It will be harder on him
than on Mama for me not to graduate with the class, and oh, I did love
all of you--I really did."
Tears, which Molly had never seen Judy shed but once before, now worked
two tortuous little paths down her flushed cheeks.
Molly and Nance comforted and nursed her into quiet. They bathed her
face and loosened her dyed locks which were now beginning to show a
strange tawny yellow at the roots and a rusty brownish color at the
ends. All the time Molly was thinking very hard.
"Judy," she said, at last, when they had got her quiet. "There's no
reason why you shouldn't pass the mid-years and graduate with your class
if you want to."
"But how? I'm so behind now I can hardly catch up, and if I miss six
weeks I can never do it."
"Yes, you can," said Molly. "This is what you must do. Go down to the
village and get board anywhere, with Mrs. Murphy or Mrs. O'Reilly. Take
all your books and begin to study. Every day some of us will come down
and coach you, Nance or I, or Edith--I know any of the crowd would be
glad to, so as not to lose you."
"But the Christmas holidays," put in Judy.
"I shall be here for all the holidays," said Molly. "It will be all
right."
And so the matter was settled. The very next day Judy's exile began. She
engaged a room at Mrs. O'Reilly's, her obstinate mood slipped away from
her and she was happier and more like her old self than she had been in
weeks. And Molly was happy, too. She felt that she had saved Judy and
freed her at the same time from the clutches of Adele Windsor.