Slender though she was, it became no easy matter to place her in the tonneau of the automobile. The credit of the undertaking went to Marjorie and Jerry, who exerted their young strength to the utmost for their injured friend. By this time a procession of automobiles containing the returning picnickers was drawn up along the road. The sound of excited voices from within these cars bade Marjorie lose no time.

"Will you please drive on before the others come up?" she entreated.

"They know now that something has happened. We ought not to have a crowd around. I hope your pa.s.sengers won't mind walking to the campus."

"Not a bit of it," a.s.sured two or three of the freshmen who had heard her remarks.

"Thank you." Marjorie flashed the group of girls one of her beautiful, kindly smiles which none of them forgot in a hurry.

Alarmed though she was by the accident, Margaret was half resentful of Marjorie's calm manner. Still she had no choice but to do as she was requested. She inwardly wished that Leslie had had the prudence to drive moderately. This affair was likely to make trouble for them all.

"Ready?" she interrogated, turning in the driver's seat to Marjorie.

An affirmative and she started her car for the Hall. Just at the gate they met the black and white roadster. Leslie was its sole occupant now.

"h.e.l.lo!" she hailed. "Is that you, Margaret? What was the matter back there? Do you know?" Leslie leaned far out of her car in the gathering twilight.

"Your roadster hit Miss Langly. I don't know how it happened. She is in my car. Her friends are with her. You'd better go on down and tell the rest what has happened. They have stopped back there."

"What?" This time Leslie's pet interjection came involuntarily and with a tinge of fear. "I saw a bunch of girls, but I was sure I didn't hit any of them. See you at the Hall." Leslie started her car without further words.

"She has nerve!" muttered Jerry. "She thinks she is going to slide out of this easily. Well, she can't lay this outrage to anyone else. She had no business to be exceeding the speed limit. She never sounded a horn, either. Poor Kathie! I hope she isn't badly hurt."

"I--I--am all right, Jerry." Katherine had heard. "The car just brushed me; hard--enough to throw me--on my back. That's all."

"That's all," repeated Lucy indignantly. "Enough, I should say. Musn't talk much, Kathie. You'll be in your room and in bed right away."

"Glad of it. So--tired," mumbled Katharine, and closed her eyes again.

The injured girl was carried into the Hall just as a driving rain began to descend. Miss Remson promptly telephoned for her own physician and bustled about, an efficient first aid, until he arrived.

Established temporarily on the living room davenport, Katherine braced up wonderfully under the wise little manager's treatment. To her plea that she could walk upstairs to her room, if a.s.sisted by two of her friends, Miss Remson would not listen.

"Wait until the doctor comes, my dear," she insisted. "He will know what's best for you."

News of the accident having spread through the Hall, girls hurried from all parts of the house to the living room, where they were promptly headed off by Lucy, Marjorie and Jerry from intruding upon Katherine.

Thus far neither the Sans nor the four freshmen who roomed at the Hall had put in an appearance.

The arrival of Doctor Thurston, a large, kindly man of about forty, was a relief to all concerned. Very gently he lifted Katherine in his strong arms and carried her upstairs to her room.

"She has had a narrow escape," he told her anxious friends, a little later. "Her back is sprained. It is a wonder it was not broken. Two weeks in bed and she will be all right again. Students who drive their own cars should go slowly along the campus part of the road. There are always girls in plenty on foot. The one who ran her down must have had very poor policy not even to sound a horn."

CHAPTER XIII.

A PAINFUL INTERVIEW.

As a result of a private conference among the Lookouts that evening, a trained nurse arrived on Sunday afternoon to look after their injured friend. Ronny, with her usual magnificent generosity, wished to take the expenses for Katherine's care and treatment upon herself. To this her chums would not hear. "We all love Kathie," Muriel declared. "I think we ought to divide her expenses among us." Lucy Warner was particularly pleased with Muriel's proposal. She had earned an extra hundred dollars that summer by doing typing in the evenings. She felt, therefore, that she held the right to offer a portion of it in the cause of her particular friend.

"It seems too bad to go on having good times with poor Kathie so sick,"

deplored Marjorie, as she and Jerry softly closed the door of the latter's room after a brief visit to her following their return from Houghton House.

"I know it, but what good will it do us to cut out recreation, so long as we can't spend the time with her?" argued Jerry. "We know she is all right and going to get well. It isn't as though she wasn't expected to live. The nurse said a lot of the girls had come to her door to inquire for her. She wouldn't let any of 'em see her. I think the Sans have been on the job. They are probably scared for fear Kathie will make it hot for Leslie Cairns when she is well again."

"She wouldn't." Marjorie shook her curly head. "Neither would I, if I were in her place. It ought to be a lesson to the Sans without any further fuss about it. They are the only ones who drive faster than they should."

"If Miss Cairns had run down a citizen of the town of Hamilton then there would have been a commotion. It is a very good thing for her that a traffic officer wasn't around. He would have arrested her, sure as fate. I wish one had been on the scene," declared Jerry, with a trace of vindictiveness.

That the Sans were manifestly uneasy over the accident was evidenced by their gathering in Leslie Cairns' room that afternoon for a confab.

Leslie herself hid whatever trepidation she was feeling under an air of cool bravado. She listened to all that her companions had to say on the subject without vouchsafing more than an occasional curt reply.

"Really, Les, you don't seem to understand that you may get into an awful mess over running down that beggardly dig!" Joan Myers at length exclaimed in sharp irritation. "Suppose the whole thing is put before President Matthews or the Board. We may all lose the privilege of having our cars at college. I read of a college out west the other day where that happened as the result of an accident to a student."

"Oh, forget it!" Leslie waved a derisive hand. "I shall fix things O.K.

Don't make any mistake about that. I'll send this beggar a whopping old basket of fruit tomorrow and a handsome box of flowers. You girls had better part with a little change in the same cause. Anyway, I have pretty solid ground to stand on. Who is going to prove that I didn't sound a horn? It couldn't be heard above the thunder. If I drove fast, I had reason for it. Why should I drive my car at a crawl and be caught in the storm? Was there a cop around to say I was speeding? There was not.

I certainly won't ever admit it. It was simply one of those unfortunate accidents. So sorry, I'm sure. What?" Leslie finished in a high, mocking treble.

It raised a laugh, as she intended it should. Her companions began to breathe more freely. Leslie could certainly be relied upon to clear herself.

Before evening of the following Monday Katherine's room resembled a combination fruit and flower market. Not only the Sans but her real friends and impersonal sympathizers also sent in their friendly tributes. Her condition much improved, she asked particularly to see Marjorie and Lucy Warner.

"Not more than fifteen minutes, please," said the nurse, as the two girls tip-toed into the sick room shortly before dinner.

"I wanted to see you so much." Katherine smiled a trifle wanly. "You were so good to me when first I was hurt. I remember the whole thing. I won't try to talk of that now. Later, when you can stay longer. There is something I wish you would do for me. Nurse read me the names of the cards on the flowers and fruit. The Sans sent a good deal of it. I--I--"

a thread of color crept into Katherine's pale cheeks. "I don't want it.

I can't bear it in the room. I understand them so well. I don't care to be harsh, but I would like you to take all of it except a basket of fruit and a few flowers and send it to the Hamilton Home for Old Folks.

It is on Carpenter Street. It would please them so much. I can't eat one-tenth of the fruit before it spoils, and you girls don't want it, I know. If it is mostly all sent away, then no one can feel hurt, neither the Sans nor my real friends. The Sans need not be afraid. I am not going to make Miss Cairns any trouble. She has asked twice to see me. I shall see her when I am a little stronger and tell her so."

"That is sweet in you, Kathie," Marjorie approved. She referred not only to Katherine's lenience of spirit toward Leslie Cairns, but to her proposed thoughtful disposal of the fruit and flowers. "I'll ask Leila to take your gifts to the old folks in her car tomorrow. I know she will be glad to be able to do something for you. I understand how you feel about--well--some things. I believe I'd feel the same if I were in your place."

"I wanted to be excused from my cla.s.ses and be your nurse, Kathie," Lucy solemnly a.s.sured her chum, her green eyes full of devotion. "Ronny said 'no' that a trained nurse would be best. I miss you dreadfully. Let me come and see you every day, won't you?"

"Of course, you dear goose," Katherine a.s.sured, her blue eyes misting over with sudden tears. It was so wonderful to be loved and missed. "I shall not be in bed for two whole weeks. I can sit up a little now and I am so strong I shall be walking about the room by the last of this week.

I am not used to being an invalid and I don't intend to get used to being one."

Naturally st.u.r.dy of const.i.tution, the end of the ensuing week found Katherine able to make little journeys about her room. It was not until the Friday following her accident that she felt equal to seeing Leslie Cairns. The nurse had informed her on Thursday that Miss Langly would be able to see her for a few minutes on Friday afternoon. Leslie accordingly cut her last afternoon recitation in order to call on Katherine before any of her friends should arrive on the scene.

"Good afternoon," she saluted without enthusiasm, as the nurse admitted her to the sick room. Her small dark eyes shrewdly appraised Katherine, who was lying on her couch bed clad in a dainty delft blue silk kimono.

"Good afternoon, Miss Cairns," Katherine returned. "Please take the arm chair. It is more comfortable than the others."

"Thank you. I can't stay long. I have been trying to see you for the last week; ever since your accident, in fact. Glad to see you better. I sent you some fruit and flowers. Tried to make you understand that I was anxious about you." Leslie paused. Her small stock of politeness was already threatening to desert her. She despised Katherine for her poverty. Now she disliked her even more because she had injured her.

"I thank you for the fruit and flowers. I asked the nurse to thank you for me when I received them. I have met with so many kindnesses since I--since I was hurt." Katherine referred to the injury she had received through Leslie's recklessness with some hesitancy.

"You understand, don't you, that I wasn't really to blame for your accident?" The question was put to Katherine with brusque directness. "I was driving a little faster than usual to escape the storm. I was well within the speed limit. Remember that. I fail to understand why you girls didn't hear my horn. It sounded clearly, even above the storm."