Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College Part 21

"I wish 'some day' was before Friday," replied Grace mournfully. "I wonder who else is to take part in this affair?"

"Watch Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton," advised Anne quietly.

"That's sound advice," agreed Grace. "I appoint you and Miriam as secret service agents. You must unearth the enemy's plans for Friday night."

"What will you do if we should happen to stumble upon them?" asked Miriam curiously.

"I don't know, yet," said Grace slowly. "It will depend entirely on what they are. Since we can't prevent Elfreda from going to her fate, we may be obliged to go along with her. If I were to ask you girls to drop everything and follow me on Friday night, would you do it?"

Anne and Miriam nodded.

"Then that's settled," was her relieved comment. "I am going to take two other girls into our confidence. I shall tell Mabel Ashe and Frances Marlton. They will come to the rescue if I need them. Besides they are juniors, and if I am not mistaken, upper cla.s.s support may be very desirable before we are through with this affair."

"And all this anxiety over J. Elfreda," smiled Miriam. "But to tell you the truth, girls, I shall be only too glad to fare forth in the cause of Elfreda. I thought her a terrible cross when she first came, but now I am positively lonesome without her, and I don't care how soon she comes back."

CHAPTER XXII

TURNING THE TABLES

For the next two days the three girls bent their efforts toward discovering the plot on foot against Elfreda, but to little purpose. So far, Grace had refrained from imparting her vague knowledge of what impended to Mabel and Frances. Her naturally self-reliant nature would not allow her to depend on others. She preferred to solve her own problems and fight her own battles if necessary. Whatever the two soph.o.m.ores had planned was a secret indeed. By neither word nor sign did they betray themselves, and by Thursday evening Grace was beginning to show signs of anxiety.

"I haven't been able to find out a thing," she declared dispiritedly to Anne. "I suspect one other girl, but I'm not sure about her. Anne, do you think Virginia Gaines is in this affair, too?"

"Hardly," replied Anne. "She and Elfreda are not friendly, and Elfreda could not be coaxed to go where she is likely to see Miss Gaines."

"But suppose Virginia Gaines kept strictly in the background, yet helped to play the trick," persisted Grace.

"Of course she could easily do that," admitted Anne. "But what makes you think she would?"

"Just this," replied Grace. "I saw her in conversation to-day with Mary Hampton. They were standing outside Science Hall. They didn't see me until I was within a few feet of them. Then they said good-bye in a hurry, and rushed off in opposite directions. Now, what would you naturally infer from that?"

"It does look suspicious," agreed Anne.

"That is what causes me to believe Virginia Gaines to be one of the prime movers in this affair," was the quiet answer. "They are all very clever. Too clever, by far, for me."

A knock at the door caused Grace to start slightly. "Come in!" she called, then exclaimed in surprise as the door opened: "Why, Miriam, where did you go? You disappeared the moment dinner was over."

"I had to go to the library," replied Miriam quickly. "Do you know whether the girls on both sides of us are out?"

Grace nodded. "What's the matter, Miriam?" she asked curiously. "What has happened? You look as mysterious as the Three Fates themselves."

"I've made a discovery," announced Miriam, taking a book from under her arm and opening it. "I found something in this book that you ought to see. I was in one of the alcoves to-night looking for a book that I have been trying to lay hands on for a week. It has been out every time.

To-night I found it and inside the leaves I found this." She handed Grace a folded paper.

Grace unfolded it wonderingly and began to read aloud:

"Dear Virginia:

"We decided that the haunted house plan would be quite likely to subdue a certain obstreperous individual. We have already invited her to a moonlight party at Hunter's Rock, as you know. Once she is there we will see to the rest. Sorry you can't be with us, but that would give the whole plan away. A little meditation in spookland will do our friend good, and this time if she is wise she will keep her troubles to herself. Of course, if any one should see her going home in the wee small hours of the morning it might be unpleasant for her, but then, we can't trouble ourselves over that.

"Yours, hastily,

"Bert."

Grace stared first at Anne, then Miriam, in incredulous, shocked surprise.

"What a cruel girl!" she exclaimed. "Poor Elfreda!"

"Of course, the writer meant Elfreda," agreed Miriam. "'Bert,' I suppose, stands for Alberta. In the first place, what haunted house does she mean?"

"I don't know," answered Grace, knitting her brows. "Wait a minute! I'll go down and ask Mrs. Elwood."

Within five minutes she had returned, bristling with information. "I found out the whole story," she declared. "It is an old white house not far from Hunter's Rock. Two brothers once lived there, and one disappeared. It was rumored that he had been killed by his older brother, and that the spirit of the murdered man haunted the place so persistently that the other brother left there and never came back. They say a white figure, carrying a lighted candle, walks moaning through the rooms."

"How dreadful!" s.h.i.+vered Anne. "It is bad enough to think of those girls coaxing Elfreda to go there. I believe they intend to persuade her to go there, then leave her, too."

"We might show Elfreda this note," reflected Miriam. "No; on second thought I should say we'd better make up a crowd and follow the others to Hunter's Rock. Of course, we won't stay there. Those girls are breaking rules by going there at night. We shall be breaking rules, too, but in a good cause."

A long conversation ensued that would have aroused consternation in the breast of a number of soph.o.m.ores, had they been privileged to hear it.

When the last detail had been arranged, Grace leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I think everything will go beautifully," she said, "and several people are going to be surprised. Miriam, will you see Mabel Ashe, Constance Fuller and Frances Marlton in the morning? Anne, will you look out for Arline Thayer and Ruth? That will leave Leona Rowe and Helen Burton for me, and, oh, yes, I'll have a talk with Emma Dean."

To all appearances, Friday dawned as prosaically as had all the other days of that week, but in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a number of the students of Overton stirred an excitement that deepened as the day wore on. As is frequently the case, the object of it all went calmly on her way, taking a smug satisfaction in the thought that she was the only freshman invited to the select gathering of soph.o.m.ores who were to brave the censure of the dean, and picnic by moonlight at Hunter's Rock. For almost the first time since her arrival at college Elfreda felt her own popularity. Despite her native shrewdness, she was particularly susceptible to flattery. To be the idol of the college had been one of her most secret and hitherto hopeless desires. Now, in the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s she had found girls who really appreciated her, and who were ready to say pleasant things to her rather than lecture her. She was glad, now, that she had dropped Grace and her friends in time, and resolved next year that she would put the width of the campus between herself and Wayne Hall.

As she slipped on her long blue serge coat that night--the air was chilly, though the day had been warm--a flush of triumph mounted to her cheeks. Then glancing at the clock she hurriedly adjusted her hat. Her appointment was for half-past seven. Alberta said the party was to be in honor of her and she must not keep her friends waiting. She looked sharply about her to see who was in sight. She had been pledged to secrecy. Alberta had said they would return before half-past ten, so there would be no need of asking Mrs. Elwood to leave the door unlocked for her. Then she walked briskly down the steps and up the street.

Fifteen minutes before she left the house, three dark figures had marched out single file down the street. Two blocks from the house they had been met by a delegation of dark figures, and without a word being spoken, the little party had taken a side street that led to Overton Drive, a public highway that wound straight through the town out into the country. The company had proceeded in absolute silence, and finally leaving the road had turned into the fields and plodded steadily on. It was the new of the moon and the landscape was shrouded in heavy shadows.

On and still on the silent procession had traveled, and when their eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, had espied the outlines of a tumble-down, one-story house that stood out against the blackness of the night a halt had been made and each dark figure had taken from under her arm a bundle. Then the faint rustle of paper accompanied by an occasional giggle or a smothered exclamation had been heard, and last but most remarkable, the dark figures had given place to a company of sheeted ghosts who had glided over the fields with true ghost-like mien and disappeared in a little grove just off the highway.

In the meantime, Elfreda had been received with acclamation by the treacherous soph.o.m.ores, who vied with each other as to who should be her escort. There were nine girls, and each of them also bore a bundle, which contained not sheets, but the eatables for the picnic. This procession also set out in silence, which was broken as soon as the town was left behind. Alberta, who walked with her arm linked in Elfreda's, began to relate the story of the haunted house.

"Do you suppose for one minute that that house is really haunted?" said Elfreda sceptically.

"No one knows," was the disquieting reply. "People have seen strange sights there."

"What sights?" demanded Elfreda.

"They say the murdered brother walks through the house and moans,"

replied Alberta, shuddering slightly.

"That's nonsense," said Elfreda bravely. Nevertheless, the idea was not pleasant to contemplate. "I don't believe in ghosts," she added.

"I dare you to go into the room where the man was murdered," laughed Mary Hampton.

"I'm not afraid," persisted Elfreda.