But Harriet only shrugged her shoulders and looked obstinate.  “I should think Miss Moore would find the society news for her paper inside the reception rooms, rather than outside in the dark.  It looks to me as though she went out into the grounds either to meet some one, or to find out what some one else was doing.”

None of the “Automobile Girls” or Mr. Hamlin made response to Harriet’s unkind remark and they were all glad when breakfast was over and the discussion ended.

Barbara at once went upstairs to the room that had been allotted to their wounded guest the night before.  She found Marjorie Moore dressed in a shabby serge suit, lying on the bed looking pale and weak.  A refined, middle-aged woman, with a sad face, sat by her daughter holding her hand.  She was Marjorie’s mother.  The two women were waiting for the carriage to take them home.

“I want to thank you, Miss Thurston,” Marjorie Moore spoke weakly.  “I believe it was you who found me.  I ought not to have asked you to come out into the yard, but I did not dream there would be any danger to either one of us.  I want you to believe that I did have a real reason for persuading you to join me, a reason that I thought important to your happiness, not to mine.  But I cannot tell you what it was, now; perhaps because I may have made a mistake.  I must have been struck by a tramp, who had managed to hide in the White House grounds.  I have no other explanation of what happened to me.  But—­” Miss Moore stopped and hesitated.  “I have an explanation of the reason I wanted to talk to you alone.  Yet I cannot tell you what I mean to-day.  I want to ask you to trust me if ever you need a friend in Washington.”

Bab thought the only friend she was likely to need was some one who could lend her fifty dollars.  And Marjorie Moore was too poor to do that.  She would have liked to ask the newspaper girl where she could find a pawn shop, but was ashamed to make her strange request before that gentle, sad-eyed woman, Marjorie Moore’s mother.

So Barbara only pressed the other girl’s hand affectionately, and said she was glad to know she was better, and that she appreciated her friendship.

CHAPTER XI

IN MR. HAMLIN’S STUDY

All morning Barbara pondered on how she could find a pawn shop in Washington, without asking questions and without being discovered.  Her cheeks burned with humiliation and disgust at the very name pawn shop!  Still Mollie must never know how much she dreaded her errand, and her mother must be spared the knowledge of their debt at any cost.

About noon the Hamlin house was perfectly quiet.  Grace and Ruth had gone out sight-seeing and Harriet and Mollie were both in their rooms.  Mr. Hamlin was over at his office in the State Department.

Bab had taken a book and gone downstairs to the library, pretending she meant to read, but really only desiring to think.  She was feeling almost desperate.  A week seemed such a little time in which to raise fifty dollars.  Bab wished to try the pawn shop venture at once, so that in case it failed her, she would have time to turn somewhere else to secure the sum of money she needed.