Alice came up as far as the tree; she paused a minute and looked around her.  Kathleen in the gray darkness looked down at her.  Kathleen’s face was completely in the shadow, but the light fell full on Alice’s, and her face, white and anxious, almost made the other girl laugh.

“If the situation wasn’t quite so tremendous I could enjoy this,” she thought.

Presently Alice ran down the passage.  Kathleen waited until her footsteps had died away, and then she descended from the oak-tree.  She flew as fast as she could the long way to the railway station.

“Alice can’t think that I want to go by train,” thought Kathleen.

Now she was truly a very swift runner, but as she was running to-night, whom should she meet but Mrs. Hopkins.  Mrs. Hopkins was on her way home after doing a little shopping on her own account.  She saw Kathleen, observed her panting for breath, and stood directly in her path.

“Miss O’Hara,” she said, “can I speak to you for a moment?  It is something very particular indeed.  I am very thankful I happened to meet you.”

“I will see you to-morrow—­to-morrow,” panted Kathleen.  “I am in a great hurry.  To-morrow, Mrs. Hopkins.”

“No, Miss O’Hara; it ought to be to-night.  You are going to the railway station, aren’t you, miss?”

Kathleen felt inclined to knock that interfering woman down.  She darted to one side of the road.

“Oh, let me pass!” she said.  She was shaking with her quick run.  She knew the moments were flying; already she heard the bell at the station ring.  The train for London was signaled; she had not an instant to lose.

“Don’t—­don’t keep me,” she said.

“But you mustn’t go, miss; it would be madness—­wicked.  You musn’t; you daren’t.”

Kathleen pushed past her.  This time Mrs. Hopkins had no power to stop her.  She rushed on, reached the station, flew up the steps, and found herself on the platform just as the train was coming in.

Instead of the forty girls she expected to meet, she saw not more than about half-a-dozen.  They all crowded up to her at once.

“I have got your ticket for you,” said Susy.  “I was just able to screw out the money to get one for you and myself.  Here’s the train; let us hop in at once.”

“But where are all the others—­the forty?” gasped Kathleen.

“They funked it, almost all of them.  Oh! come along; here’s the train.”

The great train thundered into the station.  The girls ran wildly looking for a third-class carriage.  At last they found one and tumbled into it; the door was slammed, and they were off.  Kathleen wondered—­she was not sure, but she wondered—­if she really did see, or if it was only a dream, a pair of brown eyes looking at her from the station, and the severe young figure and shocked face of Alice Tennant.

“It must have been a dream; she could not have guessed that I was going to the station.  What a good thing she didn’t meet Mrs. Hopkins!” thought Kathleen.  Then she turned to her companions—­to the six girls who had decided to brave all the terrors of their expedition.  They were Susy Hopkins, Kate Rourke, Clara Sawyer, Rosy Myers, Janey Ford, and Mary Wilkins.