Before Drummond died he recovered consciousness long enough to recognize the pale girl at his beside and to make an ante-mortem statement as to the circumstances of the accident.
Eleanor heard of the accident in the evening, but did not know of Drummond's death until early the following morning. She called up O'Bannon, but he had already left his house. At the office she was asked if Mr. Foster would do. Mr. Foster would not do. With her clear mind and recently acquired knowledge of criminal law, she knew the situation was serious. She called up Fanny Piers and found she was spending the day in town. Noel came to the telephone. He was very casual.
"Yes, poor Lydia," he said; "uncomfortable sort of thing to have happened to you."
"Rather more than uncomfortable," answered Eleanor. "Do you know if she's been arrested?"
Piers laughed over the telephone. Of course she hadn't been. Really, his tone seemed to say, Eleanor allowed her socialistic ideas to run away with her judgment. Poor Lydia hadn't meant any harm—it was the sort of thing that might happen to anyone. Oh, they might try her—as a matter of form. But what could they do to her?
"Well," said Eleanor, "people have been known to go to prison for killing someone on the highway."
Piers agreed as if her point was irrelevant.
"Oh, yes, some of those careless chauffeurs. But a thing like this is always arranged. You'll see. You couldn't get a grand jury to indict a girl like Lydia. It will be arranged."
"Arranged," thought Eleanor as she hung up the receiver, "only at the expense of Dan O'Bannon's honor or career."
She did not want that, and yet she did want to help Lydia. She felt deeply concerned for the girl, more aware than usual of her warm, honest affection for her. She often thought of Lydia as she had appeared on her first day at school. The head mistress had brought her into the study and introduced her to the teacher in charge. All the girls had looked up and stared at the small, black-eyed new pupil with the bobbed hair and slim legs in black silk stockings, one of which she was cleverly twisting about the other. She was shy and monosyllabic, utterly unused to children of her own age; and yet even then she had shown a certain capacity for comradeship, for under the elbows of the two tall teachers she had directed a slow, shy smile at the girls as much as to say, "Wait till we get together! We'll fix them!"