t. Papa Jack said one time that an honourable man would
never ask me to do anything clandestine. And it would be sneaking to do
as he proposes."

Maud was white with rage, and the hand that held the receiver trembled.
"Have the goodness to keep your insulting remarks to yourself in the
future, Miss Sherman."

"Please don't go," begged Gay. "I feel so responsible for getting you
home safely, and it _would_ be sneaking, you know, to pretend we'd been
simply trolley-riding when we'd been off with him."

"You're nasty little cats to say such things!" stormed Maud. "I don't
want to have anything more to do with either of you. Go on home and
leave me alone. Hello! Hello, Charlie!"

They heard her make an engagement to meet him at the drug-store on the
next corner. Then she sailed out of the store past them, without a
glance in their direction. Gay began fumbling up her sleeve for her
handkerchief. The tears were gathering too fast to be winked back.

"It's all my fault," she sobbed. "Oh, if I hadn't lost that unlucky
belt. To think that I begged to be a chaperon, and then wasn't fit to be
trusted."

Lloyd tried vainly to comfort her. A little later two
disconsolate-looking girls took the first afternoon train out to Warwick
Hall, and stole up to Lloyd's room. As Betty was with Miss Chilton, no
one knew of their arrival, and they spent several uncomfortable hours
agonizing over the question of what they should say when they were
called to account. They decided at last that they would give no more
information about Maud than that a distant relative had called for her.

At five o'clock, Miss Chilton reached the ticket-office with her little
brood, and found Lloyd's card with the words "gone on" scribbled in one
corner. Lloyd and Gay, watching at the window for their arrival, saw
with sinking hearts that Maud was not with them. They hoped that she
would come on the same train, and would be forced to make her own
explanations. But they were not called upon to explain her
disappearance. Miss Chilton, almost distracted with an attack of
neuralgic headache, went to her room immediately, and sent down word
that she would not appear at dinner.

"She'll surely come on the next train," Gay whispered to Lloyd, but the
whistle sounded at the station, and they watched the clock in vain.
Ample time passed for one to have walked the distance twice from the
station to the Hall, but no one came.

It was half-past six when they filed