ith
a spring lock. The guards whispered that they would remain to await
her return, and the new girl was pushed out of doors, with nothing over
her nightgown but a wrapper, and only slippers on her feet.

Although there was little breeze now, it was not cold. But it was dark
under the trees. Ruth, who could look out of the windows above,
wondered how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the center of the
campus with that vase, and leave it at the foot of the figure
surmounting the fountain, was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.

The minutes passed slowly, the girls in their shrouds whispering among
themselves. Suddenly there came a sound from outside--a pattering of
running feet on the cement walk. Ruth sprang to the nearest window in
spite of the commands of the hazing party. Helen was running toward
the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation. Besides, Ruth could
hear her sobbing under her breath:

"Oh, oh, oh!"

"You've scared her half to death!" exclaimed Ruth, angrily, as the
girls seized her.

"Put in the stopper!" commanded the girl who had seated herself on the
table, and instantly the ball of rags was driven into Ruth's mouth
again and she was held, in spite of her struggles, by her captors.

Ruth was angry now. Helen had been tricked into going to the fountain,
and by some means the hazers had frightened her on her journey. But it
was a couple of minutes before her chum was brought back to the room.
Helen was shivering and sobbing between the guards--indeed they held
her up, for she would have fallen.

"What's the matter with the great booby?" demanded the girl on the
table.

"She--she says she heard something, or saw something, at the fountain,"
said one of the other girls, in a quavering voice.

"Of course she did--they always do," declared the leader. "Isn't the
fountain haunted? We know it is so."

This was all said for effect, and to impress _her_, Ruth knew. But she
tried to go to Helen. They held her back, however, and she could not
speak.

"Did the Neophyte go to the fountain?" demanded the leader, sternly.

Helen, in spite of her tears, nodded vigorously.

"Did she drink of the water there?"

"I--I was drinking it when I--I heard somebody----"

"The ghost of the very beautiful woman whose statue adorns the
fountain," declared Mary Cox, if it were she, in a sepulchral voice.

Ruth knew now why the story of the fountain had been told them earlier
in the eveni