Molly Brown's Sophomore Days Part 20

"He's in pretty bad shape, I am afraid," answered the Professor. "He was hurt the night of the carnival in some way. I don't know just how it happened that he lost the others. At any rate, they found him after a long hunt half frozen to death, a gash in his head, and several broken bones. They thought they had better bring him home, where the doctor could look after him, but he hasn't stood the journey as well as they hoped."

"Poor Nance!" said Molly, as she hastened back to Queen's.

CHAPTER XIV.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

"Oh, Molly, what was that awful black wagon that went up the avenue a few minutes ago?" demanded half a dozen voices as she opened the door into her own room.

"The freshman at the Infirmary who was threatened with typhoid fever is getting well," remarked Margaret Wakefield.

"Surely, nothing has happened to any of the Wellington girls?" put in Jessie uneasily.

"No, no," answered Molly, "nothing so terrible as that, thank goodness.

It wasn't an undertaker's wagon, but an ambulance." She paused. It would be rather hard on Nance to tell the news about Andy before all the girls.

"It looked something like the Exmoor ambulance," here observed Katherine Williams.

Molly was silent. Suppose she should tell the sad news and Nance should break down and make a scene. It would be cruel. "I'll wait until they go," she decided. But this was not easy.

"Who was in the ambulance, Molly?" asked Judy impatiently. "I should think you would have had curiosity enough to have noticed where it stopped."

It was no use wrinkling her eyebrows at Judy or trying to evade her direct questions. The inquisitive girl went on:

"Wasn't that Dr. McLean on the seat with the driver?"

"Naturally he would be there, being the only physician in Wellington,"

replied Molly.

Then Lawyer Wakefield began a series of cross-questions that fairly made the poor girl quail.

"In which direction were you going when you met the ambulance?" asked this persistent judge.

"I was coming this way, of course."

"And you mean to say your curiosity didn't prompt you to turn around and see where the ambulance stopped?"

"I didn't say that," faltered Molly, feeling very much like a prisoner at the bar.

"You did turn and look then? Was it toward the faculty houses or the Quadrangle that the ambulance was driving?"

"Well, really, Judge Wakefield, I think I had better seek legal advice before replying to your questions."

Margaret laughed.

"I only wanted to prove to myself that the only way to get at the truth of a matter is by a system of questions which require direct answers.

It's like the game of 'Twenty Questions,' which is the most interesting game in the world when it's properly played. Once I guessed the ring on the Pope's finger in six questions just by careful deduction. It's easier to get at the truth by subtracting than adding----"

"Truth, indeed. You haven't got a bit nearer than any of us," burst in the incorrigible Judy. "With all your legal mind you haven't made Molly tell us who was in the ambulance, and of course she knows. She has never said she didn't, yet."

Molly felt desperately uncomfortable. She wished now that she had told them in the beginning. It had only made matters worse not to tell.

"Molly, you are the strangest person. What possible reason could you have for keeping secret who was in the ambulance? Was it one of the students or one of the faculty?" demanded Nance.

"People who live in the country say that calves are the most inquisitive creatures in the world, but I think girls are," remarked Molly.

"This is as good as a play," cried one of the Williams girls, "a real play behind footlights, to sit here and look on at this little comedy of curiosity. You've asked every conceivable question under the sun, and Molly there has never told a thing. Now I happen to know that the ambulance is connected with the sanitarium over near Exmoor. I saw it once when we were walking, and it is therefore probably bringing someone from Exmoor here. Then if you wish to inquire further by the 'deductive method,' as Judge Wakefield calls it: who at Exmoor has connections at Wellington?"

"Dodo Green and Andy McLean," said Judy quickly.

"Exactly," answered Edith.

Nance's eyes met Molly's and in a flash she understood why her friend had been parrying the questions of the other girls. It was to save her from a shock.

Perhaps some of the other girls recognized this, too, for Margaret and the Williamses rose at the same moment and made excuses to go, and the others soon followed. Only blundering and thoughtless Judy remained to blunder more.

"Molly Brown," she exclaimed, "you have been getting so full of mysteries and secrets lately that you might as well live in a tower all alone. Now, why----"

"Is he very badly hurt, Molly?" interrupted Nance in a cold, even voice, not taking the slightest notice of Judy's complaints.

"Pretty badly, Nance. The journey over from Exmoor was harder on him than they thought it would be. I stood beside the stretcher for a minute."

Nance walked over to the side window and looked across the campus in the direction of the McLean house. On the small section of the avenue which could be seen from that point she caught a glimpse of the ambulance making its return trip to Exmoor.

She turned quickly and went back to her chair.

"It looks like a hea.r.s.e," she said miserably.

"Is it Andy?" asked Judy of Molly in a whisper.

Molly nodded her head.

"What a chump I've been!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Judy.

"It happened the night of the carnival, of course," pursued Nance.

"Yes."

"It was all my fault," she went on quietly. "I would coast down one of those long hills and Andy didn't want me to. I knew I could, and I wanted to show him how well I could skate. Then, just as we got to the bottom, my heel came off and we both tumbled. It didn't hurt us, but Andy was provoked, and then we quarreled. Of course, walking back made us late and he missed the others."

"But, dear Nance, it might have happened just the same, even if he had been with the others," argued Molly.

"No, it couldn't have been so bad. He must have been lying in the snow a long time before they found him, and was probably half frozen," she went on, ruthlessly inflicting pain on herself.