one the same thing.

"It's a sure thing, Mrs. Brown," Colonel Gray had told her mother. "I'm
going to put in all I have because an old friend at the head of one of
the oldest and most reliable firms in the country is backing it."

The voices grew muffled as the President and Professor Green moved
slowly down the hall. Molly felt ill and tired. Would the Blounts be
able to pay back the money? Suppose they were not and she had to leave
college while Judith was to be allowed to finish her education and live
in the most expensive rooms in Wellington.

She pressed her lips together. Such thoughts were unworthy of her and
she tried to brush them out of her mind.

"Poor Judith!" she said to herself.

The President's footsteps sounded on the stairs. She paused on the
landing, cleared her throat and mounted the second flight.

How dark it had grown. A feeling of sickening fear came over Molly, and
suddenly she rushed blindly into the hall and out of the house without
once looking behind her. Down the steps she flew, and, in her headlong
flight, collided with Professor Green, who had evidently started to go
in one direction and, changing his mind, turned to go toward the
village.

"Why, Miss Brown, has anything frightened you? You are trembling like a
leaf."

"I--I was only hurrying," she replied lamely.

"Have you been to see the President?"

"I didn't see her. It was too late," answered Molly evasively.

They walked on in silence for a moment.

"I am going down to the village for a long-distance message. May I see
you to your door on my way?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Molly, half inclined to confide to the Professor that
she had just overheard his conversation. But a kind of shyness closed
her lips. They began talking of other things, chiefly of the little
Japanese, Molly's pupil.

At the door of Queen's, the Professor took her hand and looked down at
her kindly.

"You were frightened at something," he said, smiling gravely. "Confess,
now, were you not?"

"There was nothing to frighten me," she answered. "Did you ever see a
picture," she continued irrelevantly, "a photograph in a gilt frame on a
little table in the President's drawing room? It's a picture of a
slender girl in an old-fashioned black dress. Her hair is dark and her
face is rather pale-looking."

"Oh, yes. That's a photograph of Miss Elaine Walker, President Walker's
sister."

"Where is she now?" asked Molly.

"She died in that house som