“Why, Jack would murder me if I told his mother!  I should say I wouldn’t tell her!  Why, it was because his mother was going to be so mean about it and turn against him, that Jack ran away!  He’d go back, if it wasn’t for her—­he said so.  He’d rather go to jail than face her.  Why, if I thought for a minute that you’d take that stand, I never would have told you, Kate!  Don’t you dare—­” Then Marion dropped a saucer that she was wiping, and when her consternation over the mishap had subsided she awoke to the fact that Kate had dropped the subject also and had gone to read her limp little Sonnets from the Portuguese, that Marion never could see any sense in.

Marion must have had a remarkably trustful nature, else she would have been suspicious.  Kate was not paying any attention to what she read.  She was mentally rounding periods and coining new phrases of sympathy that should not humiliate but draw close to the writer the soul of Mrs. Singleton Corey when she read them.  She was planning the letter she fully intended to write.  Later that evening, when Marion was curled up in bed with a book that held her oblivious to unobtrusive deeds, such as letter-writing, Kate put the phrases and the carefully constructed sentences upon a sheet of her thickest, creamiest stationery.  She did not feel in the slightest degree disloyal to Marion or to Jack.  Hot-headed, selfish children, what did they know about the deeper problems of life?  Of course his mother must be told.  And of course, Kate was the person who could best write so difficult a letter.  So she wrote it, and explained just how she came to know about Jack.  But the professor was a conscientious man.  He believed that the authorities should be notified at once.  Jack Corey was a fugitive from the law, and to conceal the knowledge of his whereabouts would be nothing short of compounding a felony.  It was thoughtful to write his mother, of course.  But duty demanded that the chief of police in Los Angeles should be notified also, and as speedily as possible.  By George, the case warranted telegraphing the news!

Now, it was one thing to write sympathetically to a social leader that her wayward son has been found, but it is quite another thing to turn the wayward son over to the police.  Kate had not considered the moral uprightness of the professor when she showed him the letter, but she managed the difficulty very nicely.  She pleaded a little, and flattered a little, and cried a good deal, and finally persuaded the professor’s conscience to compound a felony to the extent of writing Fred instead of wiring the chief of police.  Fred could notify the authorities if he chose—­and Kate was wise enough to pretend that she was satisfied to leave the matter in Fred’s hands.

She thought it best, however, to add a postscript to her letter, saying that she feared for Jack’s safety, as the authorities had begun to be very inquisitive and hard to put off; but that she would do all in her power to protect the poor boy.  She did not feel that it would be wise to write Fred, because the professor would think she was working against him and would be angry.  Besides, she knew that it would be of no use to write Fred. He would do as he pleased anyway; he always did.