"WHAT?"
"I don't know what's made me act so mean to you this evening," sobbed Helen. "I'm sure I love you, Ruth. And I know you wouldn't have treated me so. But they said they were just going to have some fun with you——"
"Who said?" demanded Ruth.
"Mary Cox—and—and the others."
"They told you they were coming to haze us?"
"The Upedes—ye-es," admitted Helen. "And of course, it wouldn't have amounted to anything if that—— Oh, Ruth! was it truly the harp that sounded?"
"How could that marble harp make any sound?" demanded Ruth, sharply.
"But I know the girls were scared—just as scared as I was. They expected nothing of the kind. And the twang of the strings sounded just as loud as—as—well, as loud as that fat man's playing on the boat sounded. Do you remember?"
Ruth remembered. And suddenly the thought suggested by her frightened chum entered her mind and swelled in it to vast proportions. She could, in fact, think of little else than this new idea. She hushed Helen as best she could. She told her she forgave her—but she said it unfeelingly and more to hush her chum than aught else. She wanted to think out this new train of thought to its logical conclusion.
"Hush and go to sleep, Helen," she advised. "We shall neither of us be fit to get up at rising bell. It is very late. I—I wish those girls had remained in their own rooms, that I do!"