"Is it true that you were dropped?"
There was a moment's pause.
"Whatever happened, Adele, it's over now and I am installed again and forgiven."
"I thought you were being rather reckless, Judy. The rope ladder business was bad enough, but those ghost walks were really dangerous; really you went too far——"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Judy stiffly. "You are on the wrong track. I wasn't the campus ghost."
"Now, really, Judy, my dearest friend," cried Adele, seizing both of Judy's hands and looking into her eyes with an expression of gentle toleration, "why can't you confide in me? After all our good times are you going to give me the cold shoulder? I know perfectly well that you were the ghost. Have I forgotten the night you planned the whole thing out? Anne White was there. I daresay she remembers it quite as well as I do. Of course, we thought you were enjoying yourself frightening the life out of people, but we wondered, both of us, how you dared. I remember you said how easy it would be to chase girls if they ran, and how easy to escape because you were the swiftest runner in college. Why are you trying to deceive your old partner? Especially as I happen to know that you had the rope ladder all that time. It would have been easy enough. Oh, I'm on to you, subtle, secretive Judy. You are a clever little girl, but I'm on to you."
"What does she want?" Molly breathed to herself in the next room.
"But I won't tease you any longer, dearest. I only wanted to let you know that I'm at the very bottom of the secret. I came to talk about other things."
Molly breathed a long sigh.
"Here it comes," she thought.