“She was up and dressed before she even knew you were not in your room,” announced Nance.
“I was a fool,” exclaimed Judy, “and I know now what good friends you are to have come for me. I don’t know exactly what I intended to do out here,” she went on brokenly. “I felt ashamed to face any one, even mamma and papa. I might——” she broke off, shivering. Rivulets of water were pouring from her wet clothing into the bottom of the boat. She still wore the costume she had worn in the last scene of the play.
“I’ll give you my ulster as soon as we land, Judy,” said Nance, rowing with long rapid strokes which sent the boat skimming over the water.
“I’m just a low-down worthless dog,” went on Judy, taking no notice of Nance’s interruption. “There’s no good trying to apologize, Molly. Words don’t mean anything. But when the chance comes—and the chance always does come if you want it—I’ll be able to show you how sorry I am for what I did, and how much I really love you.”
“You showed me what a real friend you were last winter, Judy,” broke in Molly, “when you gave up your room at Queen’s for my sake. I wasn’t angry about what happened at the gym. I was hurt of course because I’m a sensitive plant, but I knew it would be all right in the end because we are too close to each other now to let a few hasty words come between us. But here we are at the boat landing.”
Having tied the two boats in the boat house, which was never kept locked, they hurried back to college. Nance insisted upon Judy’s putting on her ulster.
“You know I’m never cold,” she said.
“You girls will just kill me with kindness,” exclaimed Judy humbly.
But Nance did not even hear this abject speech. The question of how they were to get back into the Quadrangle was occupying her mind.
“We’re taking an awful risk,” she observed to Molly, in a low voice. “There is no other way but the window, I suppose.”