College students -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"It looked something like the Exmoor ambulance," here observed Katherine
Williams.
Molly was silent. Suppose she should tell the sad news and Nance should
break down and make a scene. It would be cruel. "I'll wait until they
go," she decided. But this was not easy.
"Who was in the ambulance, Molly?" asked Judy impatiently. "I should
think you would have had curiosity enough to have noticed where it
stopped."
It was no use wrinkling her eyebrows at Judy or trying to evade her
direct questions. The inquisitive girl went on:
"Wasn't that Dr. McLean on the seat with the driver?"
"Naturally he would be there, being the only physician in Wellington,"
replied Molly.
Then Lawyer Wakefield began a series of cross-questions that fairly made
the poor girl quail.
"In which direction were you going when you met the ambulance?" asked
this persistent judge.
"I was coming this way, of course."
"And you mean to say your curiosity didn't prompt you to turn around and
see where the ambulance stopped?"
"I didn't say that," faltered Molly, feeling very much like a prisoner
at the bar.
"You did turn and look then? Was it toward the faculty houses or the
Quadrangle that the ambulance was driving?"
"Well, really, Judge Wakefield, I think I had better seek legal advice
before replying to your questions."
Margaret laughed.
"I only wanted to prove to myself that the only way to get at the truth
of a matter is by a system of questions which require direct answers.
It's like the game of 'Twenty Questions,' which is the most interesting
game in the world when it's properly played. Once I guessed the ring on
the Pope's finger in six questions just by careful deduction. It's
easier to get at the truth by subtracting than adding----"
"Truth, indeed. You haven't got a bit nearer than any of us," burst in
the incorrigible Judy. "With all your legal mind you haven't made Molly
tell us who was in the ambulance, and of course she knows. She has
never said she didn't, yet."
Molly felt desperately uncomfortable. She wished now that she had told
them in the beginning. It had only made matters worse not to tell.
"Molly, you are the strangest person. What possible reason could you
have for keeping secret who was in the ambulance? Was it one of the
students or one of the faculty?" demanded Nance.
"People who live in the country say that calves are the most inquisitive
creatures in the world, but I think girls are," remarked Molly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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