Barbara hurried to her car as fast as she could, anxious to get back to Ruth and to devise some other move to checkmate the traitors.  She even hoped, against hope, that Harriet had been induced to change her mind and that all would yet be well.  But as Bab jumped aboard her car she saw another girl, running down the street, waving something in the air and evidently trying to induce Bab’s street car to wait for her.  Barbara begged the conductor to hold the car for a moment, before she recognized the figure, running toward them.  But the next second she beheld the ever-present newspaper girl, Marjorie Moore, tablet and pencil in hand, completely out of breath and exhausted.  Marjorie Moore could not speak for some time after she had secured a seat next Bab in the car.

“I have been watching Mrs. Wilson’s house since eight o’clock this morning,” she finally gasped.  “What on earth made you go in there?”

“I can’t tell you,” Bab returned coldly.  Not for anything in the world would she have Marjorie Moore suspect what she and Ruth feared.

Miss Moore gave a little, half amused, half sarcastic laugh.  “You can’t tell?  Oh, never mind, my dear.  I know you are all right.  You weren’t doing anything wrong.  I expect you were trying to help set matters straight.  You don’t need to tell me anything.  I think I know all that is necessary.  Good-bye now.  I must get off this car at the corner.  Let me tell you, however, not to worry, whatever happens.  I am in possession of all the facts, so there will be no trouble in proving them.  But if anything disagreeable happens to you,” Marjorie Moore gave Bab a reassuring smile, “telephone me, will you?  My number is 1607, Union.”

Marjorie Moore rushed out of the street car as hurriedly as she had entered it, before Bab could take in what she had said.

Barbara puzzled all the rest of the way home.  Could it be possible that Marjorie Moore had discovered Mrs. Wilson’s and Peter’s plot?  Could she also have guessed Harriet’s part in it?  Bab shuddered, for she remembered the newspaper girl’s words to her on the night of their first meeting:  “If ever I have a chance to get even with Harriet Hamlin, won’t I take my revenge?” Did Marjorie Moore also suspect that an effort would be made to draw Barbara into this whirlpool of disgrace?

No one ate any luncheon at the home of the Assistant Secretary of State, except Mollie and Grace.  Fortunately Mr. Hamlin did not return home.  Ruth and Bab had decided not to tell the other two “Automobile Girls” of their terrible uneasiness unless they actually needed the help of the younger girls to save the situation.  Ruth and Bab did not wish to prejudice Mollie and Grace against Harriet if it were possible to spare her.  But Ruth had told Bab that, at four o’clock, Harriet was determined to deliver the papers to Peter Dillon.

At two o’clock, however, the two friends had found no way to influence Harriet to give up her mad project.  Indeed, Harriet scarcely spoke to either of them, she was so bitterly angry at what she termed their interference.