"The police will get me if I go out on the street during school hours," answered he.
"Lou-i-i-se!"
"I'm going," whispered Louise to Rudolph, "but don't let the boys catch you! Miss Barclay has gone—and—and—don't let them catch you, Rudolph!"
The next moment she glided up the dark stairway and came out into the big hall.
Jimmie Fisher was emerging from the third-grade cloaking-room with his hat and books.
"Father's leaving for France with a hospital unit," he explained hurriedly, "and mother sent for me to tell him good-by." Then he darted away.
Miss Barclay gone! And Jimmie gone! Had God himself deserted the third grade?
*****
When Louise crept back into the schoolroom—ahead of Tinsie Willis, who was still searching for her—she found things very troublous indeed. The children were naughty and restless, and the substitute was—a substitute! The whole class had been told to stay in, and Louise was promptly included in the sentence as soon as her tardy little face appeared in the doorway.
But she did not cry or fling herself about, for she knew she had remained out of the room overtime. Of course it had been for a high purpose, but that she could not explain, so she merely assented courteously and slipped into her seat. Her grandfather and his father's father had laid down their lives for the right—if she did not succeed in living through that dreadful half-hour of punishment, she would be but another of her race to die for a high cause.