had reached the great gray stone archway which formed the entrance to the Quadrangle, a grassy courtyard enclosed on all sides by the walls of the building. Heavy oak doors of an antique design opened straight onto the court from the various corridors and lecture rooms and at one end was the library, a beautiful room with a groined roof and stained glass windows, like a chapel. Low stone benches were ranged along the arcade of the court, whereon sat numerous girls laughing and talking together.
Although she considered that undue honors were being paid them by having as guide this dashing sophomore, somehow Molly still felt the icy grip of homesickness on her heart. Nance seemed so unsympathetic and reserved and there was a kind of hardness about this Frances Andrews that made the warm-hearted, affectionate Molly a bit uncomfortable. Suddenly Nance spied her old friend, Caroline Brinton, in the distance, and rushed over to join her. As she left, three girls came toward them, talking animatedly.
“Hello, Jennie Wren!” called Frances gayly. It was the same little bird-like person who had been in the bus. “Howdy, Rosamond. How are you, Lotta? It’s awfully nice to be back at the old stand again. Let me introduce you to my new almost-roommate, Miss Brown,” went on Frances hurriedly, as if to fill up the gaps of silence which greeted them.
“How do you do, Miss Andrews,” said Jennie Wren, stiffly.
Rosamond Chase, who had a plump figure and a round, good-natured face, was slightly warmer in her greeting.
“How are you, Frankie? I thought you were going to France this winter.”
The other girl who had a turned-up nose and blonde hair, and was called “Peggy Parsons,” sniffed slightly and put her hands behind her back as if she wished to avoid shaking hands.
Molly was so shocked that she felt the tears rising to her eyes. “I wish I had never come to college,” she thought, “if this is the way old friends treat each other.”
She slipped her arm through Frances Andrews’ and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.
“Won’t you show me the Cloisters?” she said. “I’m pining to see what they are like.”
“Come along,” said Frances, quite cheerfully, in spite of the fact that she had just been snubbed by three of her own classmates.
Lifting the latch of a small oak door fitted under a pointed arch, she led the way through a passage to another oak door which opened directly on the Cloisters. Molly gave an exclamation of pleasure.
“Oh,” she cried, “are we really allowed to walk in this wonderful place?”
“As much as you like before six P. M.,” answered Frances. “How do you do, Miss Pembroke?”
A tall woman with a grave, handsome face was waiting under the arched arcade to go through the door.
“So you decided to come back to us, Miss Andrews. I’m very glad of it. Come into my office a moment. I want a few words with you before supper.”
“You can find your way back to Queen’s by yourself, can’t you, Miss Brown?” asked Frances. “I’ll see you later.”
And in another moment, Molly Brown was quite alone in the Cloisters. She was glad to be alone. She wanted to think. She paced slowly along the cloistered walk, each stone arch of which framed a picture of the grassy court with an Italian fountain in the center.
“It’s exactly like an old monastery,” she said to herself. “I wonder anybody could ever be frivolous or flippant in such an old world spot as this. I could easily imagine myself a monk, telling my beads.”
She sat down on a stone bench and folded her hands meditatively.
“So far, I’ve really only made one friend at college,” she thought to herself, for Nance Oldham was too reserved to be called a friend yet, “and that friend is Frances Andrews. Who is she? What is she? Why do her classmates snub her and why did Miss Pembroke, who belonged to the faculty, wish to speak with her in her private office?” It was all queer, very queer. Somehow, it seemed to Molly now that what she had taken for whirlwind manners was really a tremendous excitement under which Frances Andrews was laboring. She was trying to brazen out something.
“Just the same, I’m sorry for her,” she said out loud.
At that moment, a musical, deep-throated bell boomed out six times in the stillness of the cloisters. There was the sound of a door opening, a pause and the door closed with a clicking noise. Molly started from her reverie. It was six o’clock. She rushed to the door of antique design through which she had entered just fifteen minutes before. It was closed and locked securely. She knocked loudly and called:
“Let me out! Let me out! I’m locked in!”
Then she waited, but no one answered. In the stillness of the twilit courtyard she could hear the sounds of laughter and talking from the Quadrangle. They grew fainter and fainter. A gray chill settled down over the place and Molly looked about her with a feeling of utter desolation. She had been locked in the Cloisters for the night.
CHAPTER III
THE PROFESSOR
Molly beat and kicked on the door wildly. Then she called again and again but her voice came back to her in a ghostly echo through the dim aisles of the cloistered walk. She sat down on a bench and burst into tears.
How tired and hungry and homesick she was! How she wished she had never heard of college, cold, unfriendly place where people insulted old friends and they locked doors at six o’clock. The chill of the evening had fallen and the stars were beginning to show themselves in the square of blue over the Cloisters. Molly shivered and folded her arms. She had not worn her coat and her blue linen blouse was damp with dew.
“Can this be the only door into the Cloisters?” she thought after the first attack of homesick weeping had passed.
She rose and began to search along the arcade which was now almost black. There were doors at intervals but all of them locked. She knocked on each one and waited patiently.
“Oh, heavens, let me get out of this place to-night,” she prayed, lifting her eyes to the stars with an agonized expression. Suddenly, the high mullioned window under which she was standing, glowed with a light just struck. Then, someone opened a casement and a man’s voice called:
“Is anyone there? I thought I heard a cry.”
“I am,” said Molly, trying to stifle the sobs that would rise in her throat. “I’ve been locked in, or rather out.”
“Why, you poor child,” exclaimed the voice again. “Wait a moment and I’ll open the door.”
There were sounds of steps along the passage; a heavy bolt was thrust back and a door held open while Molly rushed into the passage like a frightened bird out of the dark.
“It’s lucky I happened to be in my study this evening,” said the man, leading the way toward a square of light in the dark corridor. “Of course the night watchman would have made his rounds at eight, but an hour’s suspense out there in the cold and dark would have been very disagreeable. How in the world did it happen?”
By this time they had reached the study and Molly found herself in a cozy little room lined from ceiling to floor with books. On the desk was a tray of supper. The owner of the study was a studious looking young man with
