Miss Sterling shook her head.  “It wouldn’t do!  They’d ask me what I was going for—­and I couldn’t tell!”

“Do they always ask that?” scowled Polly.

“Always!”

“Then let me telephone!”

“No, no!  We’d better leave it to work itself out.  I am not supposed to know anything about it.”  She laughed uncertainly.

“It’s a shame!  Oh, everything about him always gets mixed up with trouble!  I wish it didn’t!”

Juanita Sterling made the same wish as she sat alone in the hour before bedtime.  What could Nelson Randolph have wanted of her?  And why did Miss Sniffen and her subordinates strive so strenuously to keep her from communicating with him or knowing of any attention that he paid her?  She wrestled with the hard question until the bell for “lights out.”  Then she noiselessly undressed in the dark.

Sleep was long in coming, yet her nerves did not assert themselves unpleasantly, as usual.  In fact, she had forgotten her nerves, in the strange, vague gladness that was half pain which flooded her being.  She would berate herself for being “an old fool,” though conscious at the same time of little, warming heart-thrills that exulted over her reason.  As Polly had said, the president of the June Holiday Home had wished to talk with her about something—­that of itself was as surprising as it was mysterious.

CHAPTER XII

MRS. DICK ESCAPES

Juanita Sterling was making her bed when the soft tap came.

“What shall I do?” Miss Crilly whispered tragically, slipping inside and shutting the door without a sound.  Her eyes were big and frightened.  “I’ve kept out of Mis’ Nobbs’s reach thus far, but I s’pose I can’t very long!  They are lookin’ everywhere for Mis’ Dick—­you know she wasn’t down to breakfast, and I’d no idea she’d come—­all the while the rest o’ you were lookin’ for her.  At half-past five this mornin’ I see her go away with the milkman! I happened to be at my window.  I couldn’t sleep, ’t was so hot, and I sat down there to get a breath o’ air.  He come along and sent in the boy with the milk, same as he gen’ally does—­I see him lots of times.  But wasn’t I astonished when Mis’ Dick come marchin’ out, all dressed up in her Sunday togs, and got in and rode off with him!  She had her big suitcase—­it must ha’ been all cut an’ dried beforehand!  What do you s’pose it means?  I’m scart to death!  I do’ want to squeal on Mis’ Dick—­I always liked Mis’ Dick!  An’ if they ask me, I can’t lie it out!  Oh, what would you do?” Miss Crilly came near being distressed.

“Why,” answered Miss Sterling, “I think I should keep still unless I were asked.  In that case I should tell all I knew.”

“Oh, dear, I hate to squeal!”

“Maybe you won’t have to.  I hope not!”

“What do you s’pose she went off with Mr. Tenney for?”