He returned to his room, intending to advise Conroy that he had better hurry home and throw himself on his father's mercy before the Board could meet to pass sentence upon him; but Conroy had dressed and left the house, and Mrs. Stewart did not know where he had gone. Don waited for him all the afternoon, trying to feel worried and depressed, but unable to do so because of the happy thoughts of Margaret that kept singing in his mind like music. And the sum of his reflections was a sentimental foresight that whatever grief or calamity might fall on him in his future, it would strike him only a glancing blow so long as he had her affection to fortify him.
At five o'clock he went to meet her, hastening through the mild sunlight with a rising spirit; and he greeted her with a smile which he concealed hypocritically when he saw her expression. He thought that she had heard the bad news of Conroy.
She said abruptly: "Mrs. Kimball has written to mother." And standing on the street corner, digging the ferule of her parasol into the grass of the "boulevard," she told him of the scene of the previous evening, how Mrs. Kimball had scolded her, how she had defied the woman, how the daughters had taken part with their mother against her, and how, finally, they had written to Mrs. Richardson, refusing to have in their house "any girl who would go unchaperoned into the woods with a 'Varsity student and remain there until after nightfall." She was still defiant, still unrepentant. "I've written, too," she said, "but I know mother 'll not understand. If she doesn't come up
