She slipped back to her own room and despatched this note by another delighted child, got her hat from the dressing room and got away before Harrington had had time to even open her note. She ran all the way home, hastily changed her dress, put a few things into her little brief case that she had bought at a bargain counter to carry her papers in back and forth to school, and arrived at the station with three or four minutes to spare and a tumult in her heart that demanded an opportunity to cry. Those three or four minutes seemed longer than the whole preceding three-quarters of an hour, and she walked to the far end of the platform and kept her eye out toward the street. She somehow had a feeling that Harrington would not like it that she had not consulted him before going, and she was almost sure if he could make it that he would come down to the train. But it had happened that Harrington was busy with three guests from another school, committeemen sent out to size him up, and Joyce’s note lay harmlessly on his desk for half an hour before he even had an opportunity to read it. Even then his mind was so filled with wondering if he had made the right impression that he scarcely took it in except to be annoyed, for he had purposed taking the guests in to Joyce’s room to show it off, intending later, if matters developed sufficiently to whisper a suggestion that she might be the future Mrs. Harrington. It was very annoying of Joyce not to consult him. He would punish her for that by coldness for a few days. She was altogether too prone to take matters into her own hands. That’s what came of having an independent religion that taught one to think in unconventional lines. He had no thought of her trouble. He didn’t take that in. But Joyce was riding away into the morning and facing the awful facts that had called her from her work. Facing the possibilities that might be ahead of her. Suppose they had found Darcy and had the trial! There had been time enough for that she supposed. Supposing they had convicted him! But how could they when it was all false? Still, if such things could be published in the paper when they were not true, what might not happen? Law was a strange thing. Would they have hung him? Or electrocuted him? Did they do those things so soon after the trial? The paper had spoken of eye-witnesses. False witnesses of course. How could they be true since the thing never happened? And what was Gene doing in it all? The paper had spoken of Gene. She hardly dared to get it out again and read it over lest some one should read it over her shoulder. It seemed so terrible to see Darcy’s name in such connection. Darcy who had just given himself to Christ, who had made over his life. And this to meet him at the outset. It was enough to make some lose their faith. Not Darcy. Oh, not Darcy! She cradled the thought of him like a child in her prayers as the miles crept by and the morning went on.