“Well,” said he, slowly and carefully. “If there is a train that leaves any time to-night for Wellesley, break the news to me gently, and then come and put me on it half an hour before it starts, and tie my ticket to my coat, and put me in charge of the conductor. Otherwise—” he went on impressively, “I may get lost, or wreck the train, or stop the locomotive.”
Then he went back to Miss Ronald and told her the news. She had had a very pronounced liking for Mr. Perry Cunningham up to that time, but it occurred to her that he seemed terribly lacking in practicality, and that she was very much disappointed in him. She decided firmly what her answer would be to him if ever he should propose—though it is but fair to state that Mr. Cunningham had no thought of proposing, unless it was proposing how best to get back to College.
At 11.25 the last accommodation train pulled out with a very miserable young woman and a very remorseful young man on it.
At exactly 12.9 it left them standing on the platform of a pretty station, with not a cab to be seen, wondering how they could get up to “the College.” Miss Ronald said she thought they had better walk, by all means; that they had not had any excitement or fatigue all evening, and that a mile walk at midnight would be just the thing for them; that they might run part of the way if they found walking too slow, and that she often went out and ran around a while in the middle of the night just for the fun of the thing. (Miss Ronald was getting sarcastic—misfortune had embittered her naturally sweet disposition.)
Mr. Cunningham said hotly that he understood what she meant, and that no one could possibly be more sorry about the whole thing than himself, and that if necessary he would come over in person the next day and explain it to the President herself. But Miss Ronald said haughtily that, owing to the telegram they had sent, everyone probably thought her safe at the College, and that there would be no need of explanations. If any were to be made she preferred to make them herself.
After that they walked swiftly and quietly up the long shaded paths. The fresh, earthy smell of the sward and early spring flowers, and the cry of the night birds, and the big College buildings standing out every now and then sharply defined in the moonlight, or shadowed by the great trees, with here and there a solitary light shining at some professor’s window, made it a very beautiful and impressive scene. But Miss Ronald was too unhappy to think much about it and walked haughtily and silently on, and Cunningham could not enjoy it for the remorse he felt and the knowledge that Miss Ronald—however, unreasonably—was angry with him. Besides, he was wondering what on earth was to become of him for the rest of the night. It was three miles to the nearest hotel, he thought gloomily, and he would have to take the first train into Boston in order to get over to Cambridge in time for a lecture which he did not wish to miss.
Miss Clara Arnold awoke very suddenly and very thoroughly. Her heart gave an awful bound and then stood quite still in a most uncomfortable sort of way. There was no doubt about it—there were people on the piazza just outside her room and they were talking in low but excited tones. All the horror of her situation came upon her, and in one instant she wished more fervently than she ever thought she could wish for anything, that she had taken her friends’ advice and had not decided on a room on the ground floor opening on a piazza. All their warnings and talk of burglars and tramps came vividly to her as she lay there quaking with fear. She could hear quite distinctly the tread of feet outside, and the gentle but firm shaking of the big doors that opened from the broad corridor on the piazza. A sickening sense of fear possessed her and a suffocating pressure was on her lungs. She wondered with all her soul where the night-watchman was, and whether she had better scream or lie quite still. She was trying to decide this when she thought she heard her name called. She sat up, listening intently. And then she heard quite distinctly a girl’s voice saying, hopelessly:
“It’s no use—you can’t get that door open and I can’t make Clara hear!”
Miss Arnold gave a gasp and then jumped out of bed and into a tea-gown and Turkish slippers. She went quickly into her study and called softly to the girl outside.
“Elise, is that you? Just wait a minute!” and then there was more muffled talk outside and a man’s voice in a relieved way saying: