Judy prepared silently to obey. But a canoe is not a thing to be reckoned with at critical moments. Just as Judy raised her foot to step into the other boat, the treacherous little craft shot from under her, and over she toppled, headforemost into the waters. Fortunately, she was an excellent swimmer, and the star diver of the gymnasium pool. But the lake was not deep, and when she came up, sputtering and puffing, she found herself standing in water that was only shoulder high.

Nance often thought, in looking back on this painful episode, that nothing they could have said to Judy would have brought her so completely to her senses as this cold ducking. Certainly, if Judy had actually planned to jump into the lake, her wishes were most ludicrously carried out, and the struggle she now made to climb back into the boat showed that she was not anxious to stay any longer than she could help in the icy bath. It was a sight for laughter more than for tears, sensible Nance pondered with a slight feeling of contempt--that of Judy, struggling and kicking to draw herself into the boat. Indeed, she almost managed to upset them, too; but she did tumble in somehow, shivering and wet but extremely contrite.

"How did you know I was out here?" was the first question she put, when, having seized the rope on the prow of the canoe, they headed for sh.o.r.e.

"I didn't know. I only guessed," answered Molly.

"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."

"I can't think of any other way," answered Molly, "unless we ring the bell over the gate and alarm the entire dormitory."

"Suppose the night watchman has closed the window? What then?" demanded Nance.

"Why, we'll just have to find some other way, then," answered her optimistic friend.

But the window in the Tower Room was wide open, just as they had left it.

The doubting Nance still had another theory.

"Suppose the night watchman has left it open on purpose to catch us when we come back?" she suggested.

"I do wish you would stop hunting up troubles, Nance," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Molly irritably. "I never found supposing did any good, anyhow."

Nance, thus rebuked, said nothing more.

Molly, boosted by the other girls, pulled herself onto the window sill and climbed into the room. She looked about her cautiously. But Nance's fears were groundless so far. The room was perfectly empty.

"Let down a chair," whispered Judy.

There were no small chairs about, however, and she was obliged to choose a bench.

"How are we to get it back again?" she asked, after Nance had clambered in, and Judy, halfway through, paused to consider this question.

"Hurry, the watchman," hissed Nance, on the lookout at the door. "He's coming down the side corridor."

The next instant Judy had leaped into the room, and the three girls were tearing along the hall and up the steps, Judy leaving a trail of water behind her. The watchman had seen them. They could hear the beat of his steps on the cement floor as he ran. The fugitives reached the upper corridor just as he arrived at the first landing on the stairs.

"Kick off your pumps, Judy, and pick up your skirts. He'll trace us by the wet trail if you don't."

Another dash and they were in their sitting room, the door locked behind them. Oh, blessed relief!

Judy, in her stocking feet, was holding up her skirts with both hands.

Nance had seized one of the slippers and she thought that Molly had the other.

But the final excitement of that eventful night was veiled in mystery.

As they had burst into their sitting room, some one ran swiftly across the room, through the pa.s.sage into Judy's room and into the corridor.

They dared not follow and run the risk of meeting the night watchman, probably standing at that moment at the end of the corridor trying to trace that path of water, which, thanks be to Nance's prudence, ended there and was lost on the green strip of carpet.

Below in the Tower Room the windows of the cas.e.m.e.nt flapped back and forth in the wind which was rising steadily, and on the path below stood that telltale bench.

"Anyhow," said Molly, "there's only one person who knows we were out to-night and, whoever she is, she can't tell without giving herself away."

CHAPTER VIII.

COVERING THEIR TRACKS.

When the dressing bell rang next morning, three heavy-eyed and extremely weary young women felt obliged to pull themselves together and appear at the breakfast table. Judy had caught cold, and to disguise this condition had plastered pink powder on her nose, and now held her breath almost to suffocation to avoid coughing in public.

"Have you heard the news?" demanded Jessie, hurrying in late and sitting next to Nance.

"Why, no. What is it?" asked Nance calmly.

Molly felt the color rising in her cheeks, and Judy buried her snuffles in a long letter from her mother.

"There's the greatest tale going around the Quadrangle! Everybody is talking about it," continued Jessie. "One of the chambermaids started it, I think, because she told it to me just now."

"What is it?" asked Edith Williams impatiently.

"Some of the Quadrangle girls were out last night gallivanting. They climbed through the Tower Room window, left a bench outside and the window open. I suppose the watchman frightened them before they could hide all traces."

"That sounds like a wild freak," commented Katherine. "What do you suppose they were doing?"

"They might have been doing lots of things," replied Jessie mysteriously. "The maid said the watchman thought they had been driving or motoring with some Exmoor boys."