left on the midnight train, taking Arnold with her, of course. Judith
burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the
cave which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The next day
was the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd have
no time to get it done! Never! She characterized Aunt Victoria as a
mean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother
sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read it over
twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usually
crystal-clear countenance. She asked her husband one question as he
went out of the door. "You didn't see Victoria yesterday--or say
anything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for
heat, "I did _not_! I thought it rather more to the purpose to try to
look up Pauline."

Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. He
shook his head: "Too late. Disappeared. No trace."

She sat down again, looking sad and stern.

Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away.

When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and again
a disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the very
beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most
valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his
most-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that
he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold's
tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position.

Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice,