“Well, I’m engaged to Mr. Bartram Laws; and my guardian won’t let us get married till I’m through college, and we fixed it up to get married to-day quietly. I knew it would be all right after he found out he couldn’t help himself, and so–––”
“Tell how you asked the boys to get in the car!” ordered the fierce voice again; and Myrtle, recalled from another attempt to pass it all off pleasantly, went step by step through the whole shameful story until it was complete.
Then Leslie with a sudden motion of finality flung the little weapon down upon the mahogany table, and dashed into Julia Cloud’s arms in a storm of tears. “O Cloudy, I’ll never, never do any such thing again! And I hate her! I hate her! I’ll never forgive her! Can you ever forgive me?”
No one had heard a sudden, startled exclamation from the porch room as Leslie and Myrtle came into the house; but now Myrtle suddenly looked up, thinking the time had come for her to steal away unseen; and there in the two doorways that opened on either side of the fireplace stood, on one side Allison Cloud and the dean of the college, and on the other side two members of the student executive body, all looking straight at her! Moreover, she read it in their eyes that they had heard every word of her confession. Without a word she dropped white and stricken into a chair, and covered her face with her hands. For once her brazen wiles were gone.
CHAPTER XXIII
It happened that Miss Myrtle Villers had not confined her affections to Mr. Bartram Laws. She had been seen wandering about the campus with other youths at odd hours of the evening when young-lady students were supposed to be safely within college halls or properly chaperoned at some public gathering. The “student exec” had had her in tow for several weeks, and she had already received a number of reproofs and warnings. A daring escapade the evening before had brought matters to a head, and it was very possibly because of some suspicion that they might have found her out that Myrtle had made her plans to be absent on that afternoon. However that was, when the executive body in consultation with the dean sent for her, they traced her to the Clouds’ house. At least, they came there about seven o’clock to inquire and hoping to take her unaware. They had found Allison in a great state of excitement, telephoning hither and yon to try to get some clew to his sister’s whereabouts. They had remained to advise and suggest, greatly worried at the whole situation, the more so because it involved Leslie Cloud, whose bright presence had taken great hold upon everybody.
And now, without knowing it, Leslie Cloud had taken the one way to put the whole matter into the right hands and to exonerate herself. If she had known that any member of the faculty was in that room listening, if she had dreamed that even her brother was there, she would not have thought it right or honorable 261 to put even an enemy in such a position, either for her own sake or for the girl’s. She had only wanted some wise, true adviser to know the truth, so that the girl might learn what was right and have the responsibility taken from her own shoulders. She thought, too, that she had a right to be exonerated before her aunt. So now, while she wept out her contrition in Julia Cloud’s arms, retribution was coming swiftly to Myrtle Villers; and her career in that college was sealed with finality. It was only too plain that such a girl was a menace to the other students, and needed to be removed.