“My soul! If there ain’t the key to that old door they broke in to see what was racketing round so! I wonder if I ought to take it back? Baal, what say? That cubby of our’n wasn’t so bad. You know, Baal, I wouldn’t like to be a thief—not a reg’lar thief that’d steal a key. Course I wouldn’t. Anyhow, I’ve left, I’ve quit. I’m seekin’ my fortune—understand? Whew! The wind’s risin’. I allow there’s going to be a storm. I wish—Old Dawkins used to say: ‘Better take two thoughts to a thing!’ an’ maybe, maybe, if I’d ha’ waited a spell afore—I mean I wouldn’t ha’ started fortune-seekin’ till to-morrow and the storm over. Anyhow, I’ve really started, though! And if things don’t happen to my mind, I can show ’em what an honest boy I am by takin’ back that key. Come on, Baal, do come on! What in creation makes you drag so on that strap and keep lookin’ back? Come on, I say!”
Then, both helping and hindering one another, the lad and his pet passed out of sight and for many a day were seen no more in that locality.
Yet the strange events of that memorable day were not all over. At study hour, that evening, came another surprise—a visit to her mates of the invalid Gwendolyn. From some of them she received only a silent nod of welcome; but Laura, Marjorie, and Dorothy sprang to meet her with one accord, and Winifred followed Dorothy’s example after a second’s hesitation.
“Oh, Gwen! How glad we are to have you back! Are you sure you’re quite strong enough to come?” questioned Marjorie, while less judicious Laura exclaimed:
“But you can’t guess what you’ve missed! We’ve had the greatest scare ever was in this school! You’d ought to have come down sooner. What do you think it was that happened? Guess—quick—right away! Or I can’t wait to tell! I’ll tell anyhow! Dorothy was lost and everybody feared she had been killed! Yes, Gwen, lost all the long night through and had to sleep with the goat and—”
Gwendolyn’s face was pale from her confinement in the sick room but it grew paler now, and catching Dorothy’s hand she cried out:
“Oh! what if I had been too late!”
Nobody understood her, not even Dorothy herself, who merely guessed that Gwen was referring to their interview of the night before; but she didn’t know this proud girl fully, nor the peculiar nature of that pride which, once aroused, compelled her to do what she most shrank from. As Dorothy pushed a chair forward, Gwendolyn shook her head.