One night some ten days later, just as the town clock tolled midnight, Molly waked suddenly with a draught of cold air in her face. She sat up in bed and glanced sleepily through the open door into the sitting room.
"Where did the air come from?" she wondered, and then noticed that Judy's door was open and slipped softly out of bed. Why she did not simply close her own door she never could explain, but some hidden impulse moved her to look into Judy's room. A shaded night lamp turned quite low cast a soft luminous shadow right across Judy's bed, which was empty. Molly started violently. Once before they had come into Judy's room at midnight and found her bed empty. The startling recollection caused Molly to run to the open window. As she leaned out her hand touched something rough—a rope.
"A rope ladder!" she whispered to herself, horrified. "Great heavens, Judy has done for herself now." Just then the rope scraped her knuckles and she felt a tug at it from below. "Some one is coming up." Molly looked out.
"Judy," she whispered in a tone filled with reproach. "How could you?"
The voice from above must have frightened the climber, for, with an excited little gasp, she missed her hold on the rope and fell backward, where she lay for a moment perfectly still. It was not a very great fall, but it must have hurt, and instantly Molly climbed to the window sill and began to make her way slowly down the ladder.
It was not so difficult as she had thought, but she was frightened when at last she bounded onto the ground, and she was freezing cold in spite of her knitted slippers and woolen dressing gown.
"Have you hurt yourself badly?" she asked, leaning over Judy, who was endeavoring to sit up.
"No, only dazed from the fall," whispered Judy. "Go on up, will you, or we'll both get caught."
"You'd better go first," said Molly, "I'm afraid to leave you down here alone. Go on, instantly," she added, remembering that she must be stern since Judy richly deserved all the reproaches she could think of.
Judy began the ascent and pulled herself over the window sill. Then exhausted, she sat on the floor, holding her throbbing temples in both hands. That is why she did not see what was presently to happen. Just as Molly placed her foot on the first rung of the ladder, a firm hand grasped her arm. Why she did not shriek aloud with all the power of her lungs she never knew, but she remained perfectly silent while a voice—and it was Miss Walker's voice—said in her ear: