The Orchard Secret Part 20

"Oh, not at all!" Terry made haste to say, Sim chiming in with a murmured denial also. "And we're going to help you all we can as soon as this horrid campusing is over. Really, there must be some reason for thinking this missing young man might be in this neighborhood, or it wouldn't have said so on the poster."

"Arden has the right of it there," Sim declared, "and it's sweet of both of you not to mind this so much. But I feel very badly about it. I got you into trouble, and I got Tiddy down on all of us." Sim was impatiently kicking a clump of gra.s.s. "Well, we can't do anything about it now. So let's go back and write the real story home before our families have a chance to hear it from Tiddy."

CHAPTER XV The Alarm Bell

When it came to writing letters home, each girl approached her family from a different viewpoint, naturally. Arden, who was the most interesting writer of the three, was inclined to dramatize. Her missive was filled with descriptions, reflecting the fears they had felt at Sim's disappearance and their resentment at the punishment inflicted by the dean. All this was set forth vividly.

Terry was diplomatic in her letter. Her mother, she knew, would worry needlessly if she felt that the girls were in any danger. So she made prominent mention of the good times they were having, culminating in a mistake they had mutually made which resulted in a curtailment of some of their privileges.

Sim was writing rapidly, her eyes bright and her lips compressed into a stern, determined line. She finished first, and after closing the envelope and sealing it, she scratched on the address and turned to her friends.

"I may as well tell you, before you hear it outside," Sim began and hesitated, "but I've written to my father for permission to come home!"

"Sim! Not to stay! Don't leave us now, when things will be so dull here for Arden and me if you go!" Terry begged.

Sim looked uncompromising.

"Please don't go, Sim! Don't mail your letter. I feel as though I am to blame. Anyhow, Sim, there'd be nothing for you to do at home. Three weeks aren't so long." Arden arose and patted Sim maternally on the shoulder.

"It isn't just three weeks. It's the whole school year!" Sim declared.

"It will take a long time to fix the pool, even if they get the money.

Besides, I was told by my math teacher that I'd probably flunk out at mid-year if I didn't improve, and I'd rather go home before that happens."

"But we can help you, Sim," Terry promised. "Won't you think it over?

Even if we are campused, I know of a few parties the girls have planned, and they'll be fun."

Arden decided to try a new method of approach.

"Sim, I wouldn't mention it if I didn't want you to stay," she said. "But you got us into this, even if you meant it all for the best, and even if you do leave, Terry and I will still be campused. There are lots of other things to do besides swimming, and, don't forget, we have a mystery here that no one dreams about but us."

"I am sorry about you and Terry, but right now I don't feel like being a good sport. I'll go to Tiddy and ask her to let you two off." Sim hesitated. "But I want to go home, Arden. Don't ask me to stay."

"If you feel you must go, Sim, all right. But what I ask you to do is not to mail your letter for a few days. Write another in its place, at least temporarily, and say everything is settled. And then, if you still feel the same way----" Arden shrugged and turned aside.

Sim left her desk and walked slowly to a window. The peacefulness of the scene below, framed by the trees in their bright autumn array, must have had some influence on the perturbed girl. For, after a few moments of silent contemplation, Sim swung around and exclaimed:

"All right, Arden. I'll think it over. You can hold this letter for three days, and I'll write another to send home. But it's only because of my friends.h.i.+p for you both that I'm doing it."

"That's great, Sim! You won't be sorry. We'll forget about it now and----"

A small shuffling noise stopped Arden in the midst of her exultation. It came from the direction of the door, and, even as the three looked, a bright blue and white envelope was pushed under the portal. Terry picked up the missive and opened it.

"Why!" she exclaimed in delighted surprise, "it's an invitation for a party tomorrow in the gym. The soph.o.m.ores are giving it to the freshmen, and we must," she was rapidly reading the note, "all wear some sort of a costume. Oh, how precious!" She was gleefully excited.

"What fun!" With the suddenness of youth Arden closed her mind to the subject of Sim threatening to go home and she began to plan for the party.

"What can we wear?" asked Terry.

"We haven't much in the way of costumes," Arden admitted. "I suppose, though, we can wear riding habits or blacken our faces and slick back our hair. We'll probably have more fun that way than if we wore draperies."

"Oh, yes," Terry agreed.

"It will be a little break for us after what we know is in prospect,"

said Sim in a low voice.

After lessons, the next day had been gotten through in some fas.h.i.+on and, following supper, the three hurried back to their room. Sim put on Terry's riding clothes, which were much too big, and Terry wore a part of Sim's sport suit with a woolly cap belonging to Arden. As for Arden, she put on a short, tight skirt and a sweater belonging to Jane Randall and knotted a scarf about her throat, Apache style.

Then, using a soft eyebrow pencil, the girls adorned their lips with villainous mustaches.

"How do we look?" asked Sim, trying to pose in front of a mirror that showed only part of her.

"Terrible!" laughed Terry.

"That's the way we want to look," decided Arden.

Down in the large gymnasium crepe paper was used to cover the steam pipes, and many streamers, in the college colors, disguised the bare whitewashed walls. The room was crowded with noisy, laughing girls. At one end a portable phonograph was playing, with the loudest needle obtainable, a popular dance tune.

Arden and her two particular friends were met at the door by their soph.o.m.ore tormentors, Toots Everett, Jessica Darglan, and Priscilla MacGovern.

Toots came forward and gave Sim a large paper carton made in imitation of a traveling bag. It was adorned with huge purple and green paper bows.

"A gift for our most widely traveled freshman!" said Toots with a laugh.

"You must keep this with you until refreshments are served. Those are the rules."

Sim smiled grimly and accepted the box gracefully. So her story was known all over college in spite of the dean's prohibition?

Arden and Terry received large, blank exercise books in which to keep a record of their engagements: gentle sarcasm when it was evidently known they couldn't make any for three weeks at least.

One by one the freshmen were given articles to show up their various faults, failings, and follies.

The party was soon well under way and progressed happily. The girls who could lead were the most popular dancers that night. In fact, those girls were booked well ahead as partners.

Arden was dancing with Jane Randall at the far end of the gymnasium when she happened to glance up at one of the windows. What she saw startled her so that she made a mis-step and caused Jane to exclaim:

"Look out!"

Arden wanted to say she was looking with all her eyes, but she did not dare call her partner's attention to what had so disturbed her. For, as she glanced up at the window, Arden saw gazing down at her with strange malevolence a mocking, smiling face. Then, in a second, it was gone, and only the black square of gla.s.s remained.

Arden was almost shaking with fright, so much so that she faltered in the dance. She glanced quickly at Jane to learn whether she had noticed the face, but now Jane was smiling over Arden's head at the antics of some capering freshman.

As she circled the room with Jane, Arden's fears subsided somewhat, and she resolved to say nothing about it to Jane. Then, when the record had played itself out, that dance came to an end. For a moment following the last strains of the music there was a lull in the noise of talk and laughter.

Then, suddenly, breaking in on the happy, peaceful silence, as though it had been planned, came the slow and mournful tolling of a heavy bell.

Dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!