Lucine glided from the recess, passed swiftly from the library, climbed the stairs to her room, moved toward the drawer which held the essay, and felt for the key in her pocket. It was gone. It must have fallen out while she read, doubled up on the low step. In wild haste now, for the minutes were flying and the board of editors might even now have adjourned, she hurried back to search. The green baize doors swung open in her face, and Berta and Laura came loitering out, their arms around each other, their heads bent close together affectionately.
“Lucine, oh, Lucine!” Laura at sight of her slipped away from Berta, “what is the matter? What has happened? Didn’t they accept the essay?”
Brushing her aside Lucine swept on into the library, turned into the recess, and dropped on her knees beside the step to look for the stray key. Her eyes fell upon the open book which lay face downward where she had forgotten it. Then she remembered. “I wish no living thing to suffer pain.”
It was long past ten o’clock and the corridors stretched out their dusky deserted length from one dim gas-jet to another flickering in the shadows, when Lucine crept back to her room. Laura raised a wide-eyed anxious face from the white pillow.
“Lucine, I couldn’t sleep until I knew.”
The older girl sat down on the bed and drew the little figure close.
“When you are editor, Laura, will you try to like me still? And will you keep on forgiving me and helping—helping me to deserve to have friends? And will you—will you teach me how to make Harriet like me too?”
“Oh, Lucine!” Laura flung her warm arms around the bowed neck. “I know what we shall do next year, if I can come back. The idea has just struck me. You and Harriet and I shall room together in a firewall with bedrooms for three!”