During the afternoon Leslie had received a telephone call from Laura Sayres. Laura had refused to go into much detail over the telephone. She announced herself as having been discharged from the doctor’s employ and asserted that he knew “all about everything” without her having said a word of betrayal. Leslie had not stopped to consider whether she believed the secretary’s story or not. She had said: “You can’t tell me anything. I know too much already. Goodbye.” With that she had hung up the receiver. Her eyes blinded by tears of defeat and real fear, she had stumbled her way to her room. There she had spent the most unhappy afternoon of her life.
“It’s no use, girls. We are done. You may as well be thinking what excuse you can make to your families, for you will be expelled as sure as fate. Matthews’ call on Remson shows that Dulcie betrayed us. Sayres was fired by the doctor; all on account of that Remson mix-up. She didn’t see Dulcie’s letter, but I know he received it. Sayres called me on the ’phone.”
“But, Leslie, some of us don’t know a thing about how you worked that Remson affair! You never told us. I don’t see why we should be expelled for something we know nothing of.” Eleanor made this half tearful defense.
“Oh, that isn’t all.” Leslie’s loose-lipped mouth curled in a bitter smile. “There is the hazing business, too. Dulc told that, of course. Perhaps she told the ‘soft talk’ stunt Ramsey taught the soph team last year. I don’t know. All is over for us. I do know that. I expected to go into business with my father after I was graduated from Hamilton. Now!” She walked away from her companions and stood with her back toward them at the window.
“Perhaps it will blow over,” ventured Margaret Wayne. “I shall make a hard fight to stay on at Hamilton. I won’t be cheated out of my diploma, if I can help it. It’s our word against Dulcie’s.”
“That’s of no use to us now.” Leslie turned suddenly from the window with this gloomy utterance. “Remember Laura Sayres has been discharged from Matthews’ employ. Remson and Matthews have had an understanding. What chance have we? Sayres told me the doctor quizzed her for over two hours. She claims she told nothing against us. I know better. If Dulcie, the little wretch, had sprung this before Easter we might have saved our faces. She waited purposely. She and Walbert deliberately planned this exposé. Look for a summons soon. We won’t escape. I shall begin to pack tonight. So far as this rattletrap old college is concerned, I don’t care a rap about leaving it. All that is worrying me is: What shall I say to my father?”
CHAPTER XXVI—MAY DAY EVENING
For two days, in a second floor class room at Hamilton Hall, a real tribunal, consisting of Doctor Matthews and the college Board, convened. Very patiently the body of dignified men listened to what the offenders against Hamilton College had to say by way of confession and appeal for clemency. To her great disgust, Marjorie was summoned before the Board on the morning of the second day. Questioned, she admitted to having been hazed. More than that she refused to state.
“I claim the right to keep my own counsel,” she had returned, when pressed to relate the details of the incident. “I was not injured. I did not even contract a slight cold. I did not see the faces of those who hazed me. I know only two of the Sans Soucians personally, and these two slightly. My evidence would, therefore, be too purely circumstantial. I do not wish to give it. I beg to be excused.”
Not satisfied, two members of the Board had requested that she state the time and manner of her return to her house. Her quick assurance, “My friends found out where I was and came for me. We were all in the gymnasium at half-past nine, in time for the unmasking,” was accepted, not without smiles, by her inquisitors. She was allowed to go. She took with her a memory of two rows of white, despairing girl faces. It hurt her not a little. She could not rejoice in the Sans’ downfall, though she knew it to be merited.