Arrived at the house, Sara fled breathlessly upstairs to Molly’s room.  Jane Crab was standing in the middle of it, staring dazedly at all the evidences of a hasty departure which surrounded her—­an overturned chair here, an empty hat-box there, drawers pulled out, and clothes tossed heedlessly about in every direction.  In her hand she held a chemist’s parcel, neatly sealed and labeled; she was twisting it round and round in her trembling, gnarled old fingers.

At the sound of Sara’s entrance, she turned with an exclamation of relief.

“Oh, Miss Sara!  I’m main glad you’ve come!  Whatever’s happened?  Miss Molly was here in bed not three parts of an hour ago!” Then, her boot-button eyes still roving round the room, she made a sudden dart towards the dressing-table.  “Here, miss, ’tis a note she’s left for you!” she exclaimed, snatching it up and thrusting it into Sara’s hands.

Written in Molly’s big, sprawling, childish hand, the note was a pathetic mixture of confession and apology—­

“I feel a perfect pig, Sara mine, leaving you behind to face Father, but it was my only chance of getting away, as I know Dad would have refused to let me marry for years and years.  He never will realize that I’m grown-up.  And Lester and I couldn’t wait all that time.

“I felt an awful fraud last night, letting you fuss over my supposed ‘cold,’ you dear thing.  Do forgive me.  And you must come and stay with us the minute we get back from our honeymoon.  We are to be married to-morrow morning. “—­MOLLY.

“P.S.—­Don’t worry—­it’s all quite proper and respectable.  I’m to go straight to the house of one of Lester’s sisters in London.

“P.P.S.—­I’m frantically happy.”

Sara’s eyes were wet when she finished the perusal of the hastily scribbled letter.  “We are to be married to-morrow morning!” The blind, pathetic confidence of it!  And if Black Brady had spoken the truth, if Lester Kent were already a married man, to-morrow morning would convert the trusting, wayward baby of a woman, with her adorable inconsistencies and her big, generous heart, into something Sara dared not contemplate.  The thought of the look in those brown-gold eyes, when Molly should know the truth, brought a lump into her throat.

She turned to Jane Crab.

“Listen to me, Jane,” she said tersely.  “Miss Molly’s run away with Mr. Lester Kent.  She thinks he’s going to marry her.  But he can’t—­he’s married already——­”

“Sakes alive!” Just that one brief exclamation, and then suddenly Jane’s lower lip began to work convulsively, and two tears squeezed themselves out of her little eyes, and her whole face puckered up like a baby’s.

Sara caught her by the arm and shook her.

“Don’t cry!” she said vehemently.  “You haven’t time!  We’ve got to save her—­we’ve got to get her back before any one knows.  Do you understand?  Stop crying at once!”