Presently Leslie, feeling something strange in the atmosphere, lifted frightened, tear-filled eyes, and saw the grave faces of the dean and his companions! She held her breath with suspense. How terrible! How public and unseemly! She had brought all this upon herself and her family by her persistent friendship with this silly girl! And she fell to trembling and shuddering, all her fine, sweet nerve gone now that the strain was over.
Julia Cloud drew her down upon the couch, and soothed her, covering her with an afghan and trying to comfort her. Then the dean stepped over to the couch and spoke to Leslie.
“Miss Cloud, you must not feel so bad,” he said gently, as if she had been his own child. “You have acted nobly, and no one will blame you. You have perhaps saved Miss Villers from great shame and sorrow, and you certainly have been brave and true. Don’t worry, child,” and he patted Leslie’s heaving shoulder kindly.
Presently the dean and his committee were gone, taking the cowering Myrtle with them, and Leslie lay 262 snuggled up on the couch, with Allison building up the fire and Cherry bringing a tray with a nice supper. Julia Cloud fixed a hot-water bag to warm the chilled hands and feet. It was so good to be at home! The tears rushed into her eyes again, and her throat filled with sobs.
“O Cloudy!” She caught her aunt’s hands. “I’ll never, never do anything again you don’t want me to!” she sobbed out, and then burst into another paroxysm of tears.
“There! Now, kid! Don’t cry any more!” pleaded Allison, springing to her side and kneeling by her, smoothing her hair roughly. “You were a little winner! You had every bit of your nerve with you. Why, you did a great thing, kid! Outwitting those two brutes and bringing that girl back in spite of herself. But the greatest thing of all was your making her confess. Now they’ve got something to go on. If you hadn’t done that, it would have been her word against yours; and I imagine she’s always managed to keep things where she could get around people with her wiles. Now she’s got to face facts; and believe me, kid, it’ll be better for her in the end. She was headed straight for a bad end, and no mistake. All the fellows knew it, and the faculty suspected it; and it was making no end of trouble. But now the girl may be saved, for that dean never lets a student go to destruction, they say, if he can help it. Oh, of course he’ll fire her. She isn’t fit to be around here. But he’ll keep an eye on her, and he’ll fire her in such a way that she’ll have another chance to make good if she’s willing to take it. Don’t you worry about spoiling her life. She’d set out to spoil it in the first place, and the best thing that could 263 possibly happen to her was to get stopped before she went too far. From all you say I shouldn’t think a marriage with that fellow would have been any advantage to her.”
“Oh, he was awful, Allison!” shuddered Leslie. “He smelled of liquor; and he had great, coarse lips and eyes; and he put his arms around her, and kissed her right there before us all; and they acted perfectly disgusting! I’m almost sure from things I heard them say that she hadn’t been engaged to him at all, she hadn’t even known him till last week. She met him in town––just picked him up on the street! And that Fred Hicks! I don’t believe now he was her cousin at all.”
“Probably not. But leave that all to the dean. He’ll ferret it out. He went in there to the telephone before he left, and from what I heard I imagine he’s got detectives out after those two guys, and they may sleep in the lockup to-night. They certainly deserve to. And I shall have a hand in settling with them, too. I can’t have my sister treated that way and let it go easily. They’ve got to answer to me. There, kid!”
He stooped down, and kissed her gently on her hot, wet forehead; and Leslie caught his hand and nestled her own in it.
“O Allison! It’s so good to be home!” she murmured, squeezing his hand appreciatively. “I’ll never, never, never go with a girl again that you don’t like. I’m just going to stick to Jane. She’s the only one up there I really love, anyway.”