Arrived at this inevitable deduction, he sprang to his feet in a state of repressed excitement and began to pace the floor--like a hound on the trail. Laura had not left the room, but the book had left the room: he must keep his mind upon this point. He uttered a loud exclamation and struck the zinc table-top a smart blow with his clenched fist. Laura had thrown the book out of the window! In the exaltation of this triumph, he forgot that it was not yet the hour for a scholar's reappearance, and went forth in haste to search the ground beneath the window--a disappointing quest, for nowhere in the yard was there anything but withered grass, and the rubbish of other frost-bitten vegetation. His mother, however, discovered something else, and, opening the kitchen window, she asked, with surprise: "Why, Hedrick, what on earth are you doing here?" "Me?" inquired Hedrick. "What are you doing here?" "Here?" Evidently she puzzled him. She became emphatic. "I want to know what you are doing." "Just standing here," he explained in a meek, grieved way. "But why aren't you at school?" This recalled what he had forgotten, and he realized the insecurity of his position. "Oh, yes," he said--"school. Did you ask me----" "Didn't you go to school?" He began to speak rapidly. "Didn't I go to _school_? Well, where else could I go? Just because I'm here now doesn't mean I didn't _go_, does it? Because a person is in China right now wouldn't have to mean he'd never been in South America, would it?" "Then what's the matter?" "Well, I was going along, and you know I didn't feel very well and----" He paused, with the advent of a happier idea, then continued briskly: "But that didn't stop me, because I thought I ought to go if I dropped, so I went ahead, but the teacher was sick and they couldn't get a substitute. She must have been pretty sick, she looked so pale----" "They dismissed the class?" "And I don't have to go to-morrow either." "I see," said his mother. "But if you feel ill, Hedrick, hadn't you better come in and lie down?" "I think it's kind of passing off. The fresh air seems to be doing me good." "Be careful of your sore knee, dear." She closed the window, and he was left to continue his operations in safety.