"Why, Miss Brown, has anything frightened you? You are trembling like a leaf."
"I--I was only hurrying," she replied lamely.
"I didn't see her. It was too late," answered Molly evasively.
"I am going down to the village for a long-distance message. May I see you to your door on my way?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," said Molly, half inclined to confide to the Professor that she had just overheard his conversation. But a kind of shyness closed her lips. They began talking of other things, chiefly of the little Japanese, Molly's pupil.
At the door of Queen's, the Professor took her hand and looked down at her kindly.
"You were frightened at something," he said, smiling gravely. "Confess, now, were you not?"
"There was nothing to frighten me," she answered. "Did you ever see a picture," she continued irrelevantly, "a photograph in a gilt frame on a little table in the President's drawing room? It's a picture of a slender girl in an old-fashioned black dress. Her hair is dark and her face is rather pale-looking."
"Oh, yes. That's a photograph of Miss Elaine Walker, President Walker's sister."
"She died in that house some twenty-five years ago. You know, Miss Walker succeeded her father as President and they have always lived there. Miss Elaine was in her senior year when she had typhoid fever and died. It was a good deal of a blow, I believe, to the family and to the entire University. She was very popular and very talented. She wrote charming poetry. I have read some of it. No doubt she would have done great things if she had lived."
"After all," Molly argued with herself, "I went to sleep looking at her photograph. It was the most natural thing in the world to dream about it. But why did she look so sorrowful and then so hopeful? I can't forget her face."
Once again she was on the point of speaking to Professor Green about the mine, and once again she checked her confidence. The cautious Nance had often said to her: "If there's any doubt about mentioning a thing, I never mention it."
"By the way, Miss Brown, I wonder if there are any vacant rooms here at Queen's?"
"Yes," said Molly, "there happens to be a singleton. It was to have been taken by a junior who broke her arm or something and couldn't come back to college this year. Why? Have you any more little Japs for me to tutor?"