Mollie took the paper from Betty's unresisting hand, smoothed it out, traced her finger down the column and finally came to the name she sought.
"Sergeant Allen Washburn," she read in a small, awed voice, while the other girls crowded close to look over her shoulder.
"Dead?" queried Grace breathlessly.
"No," Mollie shook her head. "He's among the missing."
"That means," said Betty, lifting a face so still and white that it startled the girls, "that he is either dead or worse than dead. I would a thousand times rather he were dead than have him taken prisoner by the Germans."
"But we don't know that he has been captured—"
"That's what missing almost always means," insisted Betty, still in that strange, lifeless voice. "That," she added, as though speaking to herself, "was the column I always read first, because Iwas most afraid of it. I think," she got up unsteadily, and Mollie ran around to her, "that if you don't mind, I'll go upstairs a little while."
She started for the door while the girls watched her dumbly, not knowing what to do or say. Then suddenly Grace ran after her.
"Betty, darling!" she cried, her own grief forgotten in her pity for her chum, "let me come too, won't you? I don't suppose I'd be any good to you just now, but I'd do my best."
"Let us all come, won't you, Dear?" begged Mollie, while Amy's eyes silently pleaded.
But Betty only shook her head, smiling a pitiful little white smile, at them.
"Not just now—please," she said. "After a while I'll—I'll call you."
They watched her run upstairs and heard her door close quietly, oh, so quietly, behind her.
Left behind, the girls looked at one another with wide frightened eyes.
"Girls, she worries me," said Mollie, speaking in a whisper, almost as if there were death in the house. "She is so quiet and still. And when one knows Betty—"
"If she could only cry a little," said Grace, speaking in the same tone. "It makes things so much worse when you keep them bottled up that way."
"Betty's so proud and so brave," said Amy gently, as she sank into a chair and looked up, wide-eyed, at the other two. "Only this afternoon she let us see how terribly she cared."
"And no wonder," said Grace, for there was real grief in her heart. "There never was a finer fellow than Allen. He made us all love him."
"But there we go again, speaking as if he were dead," protested Mollie. "There is always hope, since his name is only among the missing."
"Yes, of course; but it is generally as Betty said," returned Grace. "Nine-tenths of the men reported missing are either dead or have fallen into the hands of the Germans."
Mollie shuddered.
"Poor little Betty," she said. "The very thought of it is enough to drive her crazy."
"If she would only let us comfort her," sighed Amy.
"I—I really think that if she doesn't call us in a few minutes, we'd better go up anyway," said Grace nervously. "She looked so terribly queer and unlike herself that I'm worried to death. Hark! Did you hear something?"
The girls listened, but all they could hear was the sighing of the wind about the house. Then, far off in the distance, came a soft rumble of thunder.
"Oh, I hope it doesn't storm," cried Amy, shivering. "That would be about the last straw."
And upstairs, in the room that Betty shared with Grace, grief and fear and horror stalked about unfettered and gazed upon the little figure on the bed.
So still and white and rigid it was that the girls would have been still more frightened could they have seen it. For, propped on her elbows, with grim, set face supported by her clenched fists, Betty was gazing unseeingly out at the darkness beyond the square of window pane.
"Somewhere he's out there," she kept saying over and over to herself. "If he's dead, there's the mud and grime—" she shuddered "—and blood too—rivers of it. But if he's captured—Oh, I can't think—I mustn't think—"
And then she would begin all over again—
"Allen is lying out there—" over and over again, till her brain whirled and her head ached and she felt faint and sick. Still she could not cry.
Her heart was frozen—that was it. And how could one cry when one's heart was frozen? Oh, Allen! Allen! How could she go on living without him? If she could only cry—if she could only cry!
What was that? Thunder. The artillery ofheaven! Did they have war in heaven, she wondered. With a queer little laugh she got up and walked to the window.
A flash of lightning greeted her, illumining the world outside, flashing into bold relief the familiar objects of the little room. Shekneltdown by the window, regardless of danger, and lifted her face to the rising wind.
She welcomed the storm. It seemed, in some mysterious way, to quiet the tumult within her. She stretched out her arms to it and cried aloud her misery.
"Allen, my Allen, you will come back to me, won't you, dear? You promised. Oh, Allen, if you're alive are you thinking of me now? Are you thinking of Betty?"
A sharper clap of thunder seemed to answer her, and then quite suddenly the ice melted from about her heart. Her head went down upon her arms and great sobs shook her from head to foot.
It was so the girls found her a few minutes later, and with cries of pity lifted her to her feet and half-led, half-carried her back to the bed.
"We didn't know whether to come up or not," Mollie said hesitatingly. "But wethoughtmaybe you would need us, Dear. If you would rather be alone—"
But Betty shook her head and reached out an unsteady little hand which Mollie instantly took in her warm clasp.
"No, I want you to stay," she said, trying desperately to choke back her sobs. "If some one will—just please—give me a—h-handkerchief."
Amy slipped one into her hand, and Bettydabbedfiercely at the tears which still would come.
"Don't try not to cry, Honey," whispered Mollie, putting an understanding arm about the Little Captain's shoulders and holding her close. "Tears are just the very best things in the world to help one through a crisis."
"Yes," added Grace, gently smoothing the hair back from Betty's hot forehead, while Amy sprinkled some toilet water on a fresh handkerchief and slipped it unobtrusively into Betty's other hand, "we'll just sit here and wait till you're all through."
"Then we're going to take you down and give you some hot tea and toast and love you a little," finished Amy.
All of which loving sympathy very nearly caused a fresh outburst on Betty's part. However, she finally got the better of the storm within her and even managed a little smile for the benefit of the girls.
Then she wiped away the last tear, sighed, and walked over to the window.
"The storm didn't amount to much after all," she said, after a while, very quietly. "Perhaps," and her voice was very wistful, "it's a good omen. We'll all hope so, anyway."
"Betty, Betty, you're so wonderful," cried Mollie adoringly. "I never saw any one so brave. You make me ashamed of myself."
"Oh, but I'm not brave," denied Betty, turning back to them. "I'm not the least little bit brave. I—I went all to pieces a few minutes ago. But he isn't reported dead," she added, drawing herself up, while two defiant spots of color burned in her face. "And until he is, I'm going to hold on to the hope that he is coming back. Nobody can take that from me, anyway!"
"Now, you're making me ashamed of myself," said Grace in a small voice, while the tears glistened in her eyes. "Here I've been imagining the very worst, while you— Oh, Betty, forgive me, won't you, Dear?"
Betty looked at her in real surprise.
"I haven't anything to forgive," she said.
The next day dawned gloriously bright, and the girls chose to take it as a good omen. Following Betty's example, they stopped moping about and imagining the worst, and, although there was not a minute of the day when their hearts were not aching, they managed to smile when the others were looking and to speak hopefully of the future. Under Betty's gallant leadership, they had set up hope in their hearts and refused to give despair a foothold.
"What do you say to a swim?" Mollie suggested, looking out over the sparkling white sand to the inviting water beyond. "We've only been in swimming twice since we've been here."
"That is a terrible record for Outdoor Girls," Betty agreed. She was bustling busily about the cheerful kitchen making a tempting blueberry pie. There were circles under her eyes and she looked very pale for Betty, but her voice was bright and cheery.
"Can't you stop making pies for a fewminutes?" asked Mollie, turning to look at her. "It's too nice outdoors to waste time in cooking."
"I imagine you wouldn't say that to-night," retorted Betty, fluting the edges of her pie crust. "I notice you generally like the results of my labor."
"Who wouldn't?" returned Mollie. "I only know of one person who can make better pies."
"And that's yourself, of course." Betty made a little face at her and slipped the pie into the oven. "Just for that you can have only one piece to-night!"
"I don't care, if you'll only stop working and come along," insisted Mollie. "If I stay in the house much longer I'll start thinking again—and you know what that means."
Betty gave her a quick side-glance, hastily dusted the flour from her hands and took off her apron.
"I'm all ready," she announced. "Where are the other girls?"
"In the living room, reading and eating candy—or at least Grace is doing the candy part. Amy has sworn off, you know."
The girls agreed eagerly to the proposed swim, and in a few minutes had donned their suits and caps and pronounced themselves ready.
"I ought to get a letter from mother to-day,"said Mollie, as her feet sank in the soft sand. "She said yesterday that the detectives had picked up a clue and thought they were on the right trail at last."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Betty demanded.
"Oh, I don't know," Mollie replied wearily. "I didn't think there was any use telling you until I had something really definite. You know the chief business of a detective is nosing out false clues," she finished scornfully.
"Well, I know once we met a perfectly capable detective," remarked Betty. By this time they had reached the water and she put one toe into it experimentally.
"Ouch—it's cold," she said.
"When did we meet a capable detective?" queried Mollie, looking interested.
"Just after we went to Camp Liberty when Will traced the German spy," Betty reminded her. "Did you ever see prettier detective work in your life?"
"Yes, it was splendid," Mollie admitted, but the reference proved to be an unfortunate one. It brought back vividly the picture of Will as he had been then, at the height of his triumph over the apprehension of the spy—in which the Outdoor Girls had also played an important part—and jubilant at the prospect of being able to jointhe colors at last and fight in the army of democracy.
Try as they would, they could not enter into the fun as they would have done a few weeks before. They swam aboutlanguidlyand found to their surprise that they became quickly and easily tired.
"I never knew before how much influence mind has over matter," said Mollie, after they had come out on the beach again. "I declare, even my muscles feel depressed!"
"As Outdoor Girls we're getting to be marvelous failures," remarked Grace, as she wrung the water from her skirt and plumped down in the sand. "I feel as weak as a rag."
"I guess it isn't much use trying to enjoy ourselves," sighed Betty plaintively. "I've done my best, but all the time I feel as if I were just trying to kid myself, in the vulgar vernacular."
"For goodness sake, don't you give up, Betty!" cried Grace, in alarm. "If you get discouraged, then I don't know what we shall do."
"I'm not really discouraged—" Betty began, when a terrified cry cut her short and the girls sprang to their feet bewildered.
"Where is it?" cried Mollie, but Betty caught her arm and pointed with shaking fingers toan orange-colored cap bobbing on the water several hundred feet from shore.
"It's Amy!" she gasped. "Something must have happened. Come on, girls! Who's going with me?"
Without waiting for an answer, she was off like a shot with Mollie and Grace close behind.
They had not missed quiet little Amy, and if they had, would probably have thought she had gone for an unusually long swim. And now had come her frantic cry for help.
"What is the matter?" Betty cried over and over to herself, as she put all her strength into the long, powerful strokes. Amy was a splendid swimmer, almost as good as Betty herself.
For one terrible moment the thought of sharks dashed into Betty's mind and she shuddered. But the next minute reason reasserted itself and she realized that sharks had never been seen on this coast. Baby ones, perhaps, but not the man-eating variety.
She raised her head from the water and gazed in the direction of the vivid cap. Yes, there it was! Thank heaven there was still time.
"Amy! Amy!" she called, "I'm coming. Just hold on for a minute, Honey. I'm almost to you."
No answer came back to her, and when shelooked again for the cap she found to her horror that it was gone.
"Oh," she moaned, "I'm too late. I'm too late. Oh, Amy, Amy, just another minute—just a little minute—" she redoubled her efforts and suddenly gave a shout of joy.
There was the cap again, almost under her hand. In her frenzy of haste she had covered the distance with almost unbelievable speed.
Her shout seemed to rouse Amy, who had been struggling feebly to keep her head above the water, and the girl turned a terror-stricken face to her.
"Can you put a hand on my shoulder?" gasped Betty, beginning to feel the tremendous effort she had made. "Hang on to me, Honey, and we'll get out of this all right."
Amy clutched her shoulder, and slowly the Little Captain turned about, saving her strength for the long swim back. She could not be too long about it either, she thought desperately. Amy was almost exhausted and had all she could do to keep her head above the water.
It all depended on her, Betty. If she could get to shore, carrying the double weight before Amy's strength left her and she gave up altogether, all well and good. But if she could not—she groaned and set herself grimly to her task.
She had covered about an eighth of the distance back when her heart leapt suddenly and she gave a sigh of relief. There were two other bobbing caps on the water coming rapidly nearer—and those two caps could belong to nobody but Mollie and Grace.
TWO OTHER BOBBING CAPS WERE COMING RAPIDLY NEARER.TWO OTHER BOBBING CAPS WERE COMING RAPIDLY NEARER.
The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point.Page 193.
That meant help—and, oh, she did need help! She was putting forth all her strength, but to her agonized fancy she was not going forward at all. Amy's almost dead weight dragging at her shoulder seemed a nightmare. Yet she dreaded beyond anything else to be relieved of the weight for that would mean—. She refused to put the awful thought into words, merely driving herself on more desperately. And all the time she was gasping out words of hope and courage to the poor girl she supported.
Amy seemed beyond words, for she made no answer, merely clutching Betty's shoulder more tightly and holding on with a grimness born of terror.
Then just as the gallant Little Captain felt her strength going and knew she could not hold out much longer, Mollie came abreast of her with Grace a few feet behind.
Mollie shook the water from her eyes, gave one glance at Betty's face, then gave peremptory orders.
"Give her to me, Betty," she directed. "I guess you're about all in. That's it, Amy; grasp my shoulder with your other hand. Get a good grip before you let go of Betty. That's the way. Now we're all right. Between us we'll have you in in a jiffy. All right, Betty? Do you need help yourself?"
But Betty shook her head, her long steady strokes keeping her even with Mollie. In a moment Grace came up to them and directed Amy to put her free hand on her shoulder, and in this fashion they finally reached shallow water.
They found that they were not a moment too soon, for as they got to their feet and stooped to lift Amy, they found that she had fainted.
"Thank heaven that didn't happen out there," cried Betty, with a shuddering glance out over the treacherous water.
Between them, fatigued though they were with the ordeal they had just gone through, they got Amy to the shore and began to work over her.
It did not take very long to bring her back to consciousness, for Amy had a wonderful constitution and strong vitality. However, it seemed ages to the anxious girls who worked over her, and when at last she opened her eyes they were ready to cry with relief.
"H-how do you feel?" asked Betty tremulously,for she was beginning to feel the reaction. "Are you all right?"
"Don't try to get up," commanded Mollie, as Amy tried weakly to raise herself on her elbow.
"Just lie still and you'll feel better in a minute," Grace added, while Amy looked from one to the other of them with wide, bewildered eyes.
"What happened," she asked, then, as memory came sweeping back to her, she gave a little cry and covered her eyes with her hand.
"Oh, girls," she cried, "I thought I was going to die!"
"Yes, yes, we know," said Betty soothingly, as though she were talking to a little child, "but you're all right now, dear."
"Don't try to tell us about it unless you want to," added Mollie.
"I swam out farther than I meant to," Amy went on, as though they had not spoken. "And when I tried to get back I found that something was wrong with my right leg." She was shivering with exhaustion and the memory of the awful experience she had gone through, but when the girls tried to stop her she would not listen and hurried on feverishly.
"It was a cramp I guess, and the harder I tried to get rid of it the worse it got till finally I got panic-stricken. I called to you girls, but youdidn't seem to hear me. Then—" she paused, and the girls held their breath as she looked around at them. "Then—I went down. I came up again and called, and—and—I saw you, Betty. Oh, it was terrible!"
"Then," cried Betty, her voice trembling, "when you went down that last time—"
"I didn't go down," Amy contradicted her. "I struggled so hard that I succeeded in getting my head above water and—that was when you reached me—Betty—"
"Thank Heaven," said Betty, with a little sob, "that I was there!"
"Well," said Mollie, with a sigh, "I fancy there isn't very much use of our sitting around here in our bathing suits. I, for one, don't feel like swimming any more to-day."
"Nor I," agreed Grace.
"And I," said Amy, turning away with a shudder from the water where she had so closely come to death, "feel as if I never wanted to see the water again."
"Oh, but you will get over that," Betty assured her quickly. "I don't blame you a bit for feeling that way now—I do myself—but after a while you will be just as crazy about it as ever."
"I don't know," said Amy slowly. "When you have once come face to face with death like that, you are not anxious to do it again in a hurry."
"But you have never had a cramp before," reasoned Mollie, "and you probably never will have one again."
"But I am not sure of that," insisted Amy.
"There's no reason why you can't be sure of itafter a while," Betty pointed out. "You see, we girls are pretty well out of practice. It's a long time since we did any swimming to amount to anything, and our muscles are weak and flabby. Why, we all got tired out to-day twice as quickly as we ordinarily would."
"And you tried to swim too far," added Mollie. "That's the reason your poor old muscles protested."
"It might have happened to any one of us," Grace agreed. "All we need is a little practice to swim as well as ever again."
"Oh, do you think so?" asked Amy eagerly, while the color came back into her pale cheeks. "If I could only be sure of that!"
Betty was about to reply, but at that minute a voice hailed them from the direction of the house and they jumped up to see what was wanted.
"It's mother," said Grace. "And she seems to bewavingsomething at us."
"It's an envelope," cried Mollie. "Itmay bea letter from mother."
She started running toward the house, with Grace, thinking of Will, at her heels, while Betty helped Amy to her feet.
"Are you feeling stronger now?" she asked. "Or would you rather rest a little longer?"
"Oh, I'm all right," Amy assured her, thoughfor a minute she had to cling to Betty for support.
They made their way rather slowly after the others. Before they had reached the foot of the bluff Mollie came scrambling down again and ran toward them wildly.
"What do you think has happened now?" she cried, taking Amy's other arm and helping her along.
"Oh, Mollie," cried Amy, standing stock still to gaze at her, "what—"
"The twins haven't been found?" Betty questioned eagerly, but Mollie shook her head.
"No such luck," she returned. "But we have found out one thing. Those blessed little twins are alive, anyway."
"How do you know?" they queried breathlessly.
By this time they had reached the top of the bluff and were all, Mrs. Ford included, hurrying toward the house.
"They received a letter," Mollie explained, sinking down on a step of the porch while the others crowded about her eagerly, "from some old rascal—oh, if I could only get my hands on him!" she paused to glare about her ferociously, but they impatiently hurried her on.
"Yes! But the letter!" Betty urged.
"It was from a man who demanded twentythousand dollars—" she paused again, while the girls gasped and crowded closer, "for the return of the twins."
"Then they were kidnapped!" cried Grace.
"Yes. But they ran away first," explained Mollie, almost beside herself with anger and excitement. "And this old—brute! found them, and, I suppose because they were well dressed, thought he saw a way to make some easy money. Oh, my poor darlings! My poor little Paul and Dodo! Girls, we've just got to find them, that's all. I can't sit here and do nothing a minute longer."
"But the police—" Amy suggested.
"Oh, the police! Of course they are on the job—or think they are," interrupted Mollie scornfully. "But I don't believe they will be able to find our babies in a thousand years. And every time I think of them, frightened to death! Oh, our precious babies!"
"I wonder how he found out where they lived," broke in Grace, who had been following her own train of thought.
"They told him, of course," said Mollie. "Poor little trusting angels, of course they would think any grown person was their friend. Oh, if they had only fallen in with some respectable person instead of that—that—" she could think of nothing bad enough to call the man who had stolen the twins.
"Of course," said Mrs. Ford—it was the first time she had spoken—"your mother showed the letter to the police."
"Of course," Mollie agreed, two angry spots of color in her cheeks. "And equally of course they have promised to do all in their power to apprehend the villain. But it makes me wild to just sit here and do nothing!"
"But I don't see what there is to do," said Amy.
"Neither do I," cried Mollie, jumping to her feet and beginning to pace restlessly up and down the porch. "That's the worst of it. I feel so absolutely helpless. And all the time I have no way of knowing what horrible thing may be happening—"
"Oh, the man is probably treating them pretty decently," said Betty, adding, reasonably: "If he hopes to get all that money from your mother he isn't going to take a chance on losing it by harming the twins."
"I know," cried Mollie, stopping in her restless promenade to regard Betty. "But how in the world is mother going to raise any such sum of money? Twenty thousand dollars—why, we haven't that much ready cash in the world!"
"But he doesn't know that," Grace pointed out. "And as long as he keeps on hoping—"
"But how long is he going to keep on hoping?" cried Mollie, turning on her. "He knows mighty well that if mother had that much money she would move heaven and earth to get it together and get the twins back. And the very fact that she hasn't—"
"Oh, but that doesn't always follow," Betty broke in eagerly. "There are a great many people who, even if they had the money, would try to bring the rascal to justice before they submitted to blackmail."
"But not my mother," Mollie insisted.
"But the kidnapper doesn't know that," Grace put in. "And he will probably lie mighty low for a few weeks, knowing that the police are hunting for him."
"For the next few weeks, yes," admitted Mollie. "But he isn't going to wait forever, and when he finds out that mother can't raise the money what would be the natural thing for him to do? Get the twins out of the way, of course," she said, answering her own question.
"But there is always the chance—yes even the probability—" insisted Betty, "that before very long the police will be able to find the fellow and recover the twins."
"Yes," Grace added, "that kind of criminal is never very clever, you know. They are bound to leave something undone that will incriminate them."
Mollie groaned and sank into a chair.
"And in the meantime," she said, "all I have to do is just to sit here and wait and act as if nothing had happened. Oh, I can't! I've simply got to do something!"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know how a girl can do anything that the police can't," sighed Grace, adding wistfully: "Goodness, wouldn't I like a chance to be happy again!"
"I guess we all would," said Mollie moodily.
They were silent for a long time after that, each one busy with her own unhappy thoughts and no one noticed that the sun had gone under a cloud and that the wind was rising.
It was the increasing thunder of the waves on the rocks that finally startled them into a realization of the present.
"There's a fearful storm coming up!" cried Grace, springing to her feet. "Look at those banks of clouds."
"And I'm getting cold," added Amy, shivering, and then they suddenly realized that they still had on their bathing suits.
"I guess we're going crazy—and no wonder,"said Grace, as they started indoors to change their things.
"Has any one any idea what time it is?" asked Mollie. "I'm sure I haven't."
"It must be after twelve, for I'm beginning to feel hungry," Betty answered.
"And I'm feeling faint," Amy added. "I shouldn't wonder if a cup of tea would go awfully well."
"You poor little thing," said Betty, putting an arm about her. "No wonder you feel faint. We should have given you something to strengthen you long ago. I don't know what we've been thinking of!"
"It's all my fault," said Mollie contritely, noticing suddenly how white Amy's face was and how dark were the circles under her eyes. "I let my own affairs make me forget everything else. Why didn't you say something, Amy?"
"I didn't think of it myself," Amy answered truthfully, "until Betty spoke of being hungry. Girls," she paused outside her door to sniff inquiringly, "do I smell something, or am I dreaming?"
"I'll say you smell something," Grace answered, sniffing hungrily in her turn. "It's mother getting lunch, of course. I don't know what we ever would have done without her."
While the girls were dressing the threatened storm was coming nearer, and toward the end they had to put on the light to see to fix their hair.
Even had the sun been shining brightly, they would have felt depressed, what with Amy's accident and the bad news Mollie had received; but with the wind wailing dolefully and black darkness in the middle of the day, they felt themselves growing utterly discouraged.
Grace had heard no further news of Will, and the one straw of hope that she clutched so desperately was that he had not died, or surely her father would have heard. In this case, no news was good news to a certain extent.
And as for Betty, brave as she had tried to be since that terrible night when she had read Allen's name among the missing, even she felt her courage slipping—slipping, and began to wonder if after all, hoping did any good.
To-day, as she stood before the mirror, mechanically putting up her hair and looking through and past her own reflection, her eyes suddenly lost their preoccupied stare and became focused upon herself. For the first time in days she was seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness she had so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, her eyes suddenly filled with tears—tears almost of self-pity.
For the mirror told her, what she had scarcely realized, just how much she had suffered. Her eyes, usually so bright and merry, were dark and brooding. Her face looked thin and drawn, and her lips—those lips that had always seemed to smile even when her eyes were grave—had a pathetic, wistful droop, and there were lines, yes, actually lines, about them.
"If Allen should see you," she told herself tremulously, "he probably wouldn't know you, Betty."
Yet all the while she knew that if it were possible for Allen to see her or for her to see Allen, the face in the mirror would disappear as if by magic and the old Betty would return, for joy would have taken its place in her heart.
With a little sob she turned from the mirror and switched off the light. The noise of the surf beating against the rocks came to her menacingly and the wind wailed shrilly around the house.
"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, stretching out her arms in an agony of entreaty. "Somewhere you must hear me calling you. Allen, come back to me, dear!"
"I wonder if it is going to rain forever," cried Mollie petulantly, beating a restless tattoo on the window pane. "As if we weren't forlorn enough without the old weather making things a hundred times worse."
"They say troubles never come singly, and I guess they're right," sighed Amy. She was sitting near the window in the brightest spot she could find—which was not very bright at that—knitting and trying her best not to think of Will. The result was that he was never for a minute out of her mind.
"What's the matter, Grace—I mean more than usual?" Betty laid aside her book and looked over at Grace questioningly. "I don't believe you've said three consecutive words all day long."
"And left to myself I wouldn't say that much," returned Grace moodily, adding, as they turned to stare at her: "It seems as if I never open my mouth these days but what I say something unpleasant, so I made up my mind last night that Iwouldn't talk till I had something cheerful to talk about."
"Then you're apt to be dumb till doomsday," retorted Mollie, with such a depth of pessimism that the girls had to smile at her.
"What an awful thing to happen to a girl," said Betty, with a wry little smile.
"I'm glad you didn't say what girl," retorted Grace, and therewith subsided into her gloomy meditation again.
Betty took up her book and Amy went on with her knitting while the rain came down in torrents and the surf thundered and roared.
Mollie turned from the window and looked at them, and the whole situation suddenly appealed to her rather hysterical sense of humor. She began to laugh, and the longer she laughed the harder she laughed till she sank into a chair and shook with mirth.
The other girls first looked surprised, then alarmed.
Betty threw down her book and went over to her.
"For goodness sake, Mollie, what's the joke?" she asked, as Mollie looked up at her with red face and watery eyes.
"If it's as funny as all that I think you might share it with us," added Grace.
"Oh, it isn't funny," gasped Mollie, "it's h-horrible."
Then as suddenly as she had begun to laugh, she began to cry with great sobs that tore themselves from her and seemed utterly beyond her control.
Alarmed, the girls soothed and patted and comforted her till finally the storm had passed and she became more quiet.
"You must think I'm a p-perfect idiot," she sputtered, raising swollen eyes to them. "I don't know what in the w-world g-got into me. I just went all to pieces."
"So we see," said Betty, while she gently wiped Mollie's eyes with a clean handkerchief. "But please don't do it again," she added whimsically. "I don't believe we could survive another one."
"But it's made me feel better," said Mollie, a minute later, as though the discovery surprised her. "It's made me feel lots better," she added.
"I wonder if we couldn't all try it," suggested Amy.
"Yes, how do you get that way," added Grace, with interest. "I'm willing to try anything once."
"It—it isn't pleasant while it lasts," said Mollie, adding with a suggestion of a smile: "And I doubt if I could give you the recipe."
"I wonder," Amy suggested shyly after a little while, "if perhaps a little music wouldn't help out. Won't you play for us, Betty?"
"Oh, Betty, please!" Grace took up the suggestion eagerly. "It would take our minds off ourselves."
"Yes, do, Betty. You know you never refuse," urged Mollie, jumping up and escorting the Little Captain to the piano.
Betty obediently sat down to the piano, but her fingers wandered over the keys uncertainly. She did not want to play. Music, good music, always roused in her a feeling of exquisite sadness, a pain that was akin to joy, and in her present mood she was afraid to play.
But the girls had asked her to, and if it would make them feel any better—
She struck a chord of exquisite harmony, and every fibre in her seemed yearningly to respond. She had meant to play something bright and cheerful, but almost against her will her fingers wandered into Grieg's "To Spring."
The elusive, plaintive melody floated throbbingly out into the room, while the girls sat motionless, fascinated. They had never heard Betty play just this way before, and instinctively they knew that she was showing them her heart.
She played it through to the last whisperingnote, then dropped her head upon her arms and sobbed as though her heart would break.
"You shouldn't have asked me," she said, when they tried to comfort her. "I knew I couldn't play without making a f-fool of myself. It was the one—Allen loved best—" the last words so low that they had to bend close to hear them.
"Poor little Betty!" cried Mollie, stroking her hair gently. "It was selfish of us to ask you, but you did play it wonderfully," she added with a sudden little burst of enthusiasm. "You had us all hypnotized."
"And then I had to go and spoil everything by making a baby of myself," Betty lamented. "Goodness, I've cried more in the last week than in all the rest of my life before."
"Well, you have had plenty of company," said Grace dryly. "Though what comfort that is, I never could see."
Betty sat up, dabbed a last tear from her eyes, and looked about her with a weak little attempt at a smile.
"Well," she said, "now that Mollie and I have entertained the company, I wonder who's next?"
"I'll recite that little ditty entitled, 'The Face On the Barroom Floor'," Amy volunteered. "Some kind person wished it upon me when I was too young to object."
"Don't you dare," said Grace, alarmed. "If you do I'm going out, rain or no rain—"
"And get drowned."
"Well, there are worse things."
"No there aren't," denied Amy, with a shiver. "I know, because I tried it."
At that moment came an interruption in the shape of a sharp rapping at the kitchen door.
The girls looked at one another questioningly.
"Mercy, I wonder who's calling upon us in this weather?" said Mollie.
"It might be a good idea to look and see," Betty returned dryly, and ran to the kitchen, followed closely by the others.
She flung open the door, letting in a gust of wind and a flood of rain as she did so, and a tall figure in a rubber coat almost fell into the room.
"Why, it's our delivery-boy-mail-carrier!" cried Betty, as the young giant recovered himself and pulled off his dripping hat.
"Yes'm," he replied, with a good-natured grin that stretched from ear to ear. "The very same, an' at your service."
"But how did you manage to get here?" cried Betty, too astonished even to offer the unexpected visitor a seat. "You never could drive through that awful mud."
"No'm, I reckon mos' likely I couldn't," heanswered amiably, adding with a return of the loquacity that was his most marked failing: "I remember one year we had a storm near's bad as this, an' Luke Bailey, he got kind of short o' pervisions—campin' in the woods he was—an' he tried to drive his team into town—"
"But you said you didn't drive out!" Grace interrupted. "And if you didn't drive, you must have walked all the way."
"Yes'm, reckon I did. Well, Luke he got jest about as fur—"
"But why did you come?" broke in Mollie, unable to bear the suspense any longer.
"I got this here package of letters," he replied, seeming suddenly to remember the cause of his errand. "Some o' them came a couple o' days ago, but I said to myself I might jest as well wait an' see if the weather didn't clear up—"
"And so when it didn't, you walked away up here in all the rain," Betty finished for him, real gratitude in her voice. "It was most awfully kind of you."
"Oh, that ain't nothin'," he denied, fidgeting uneasily, while Mollie hastily sorted the letters. "I ain't never finished tellin' you what happened to Luke Bailey—"
He was off again, and the girls were vaguely conscious of his voice rambling on and on whilethey eagerly scanned the handwriting on their letters.
Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry and stumbled back against the table, holding on to it for support.
"Betty! Honey! What is it?" cried Amy. "You look as white as a ghost."
"A letter," she gasped, holding out an envelope with the familiar red diamond in the corner. She was shaking from head to foot. "Girls, oh, girls, it's from Allen!" Then she turned and fled from the room.
Luke Bailey's biographer stared after her stupidly while the girls gasped and looked wildly at one another for confirmation of what they had heard.
"A letter!" she had said. "From Allen!"
Then he was not dead—their dazed brains comprehended that fact. And he could not be missing either. After a minute that stupefying fact became equally clear.
Then slowly they regained the use of their tongues.
"Did you hear what I heard?" asked Mollie, looking from Grace to Amy and back again.
"I think I'm awake," Grace answered, with the same incredulous look in her eyes.
"She said," Amy repeated slowly, "that shehad received a letter from Allen. Then the report that he was missing must have been a mistake."
"It looks that way," said Mollie, two spots of color beginning to burn in her face. Then she turned to the boy who was still staring stupidly from one to the other of them. Even the story of Luke Bailey had been temporarily driven from his mind.
"Miss Nelson," Mollie explained, taking pity on his bewilderment, "has received the most wonderful news, and we can't thank you enough for bringing it to her. Can't we get you a cup of tea or something?" she offered, rather vaguely.
But the boy refused, and seeing that they were all tremendously excited about something, he finally took his leave, feeling very much abused that his story of Luke and his adventures had not been listened to with the attention it deserved.
Once the door was closed behind this angel in disguise, the girls rushed after Betty and were met and nearly bowled over by that delirious little person herself.
"He's not missing—never was!" she cried, waving the letter wildly in the air, beside herself with relief and joy. "He's just as well as ever he was, and Grace darling, and Amy, too, he says, he says—"
"Oh, what?" cried Grace, her face growing white while Amy clutched the back of a chair.
Betty tried to pull herself together. She turned the pages of the letter in search of a particular place. Finding it, she began:
"He says that Will—Oh read it," she cried, thrusting the letter into Grace's hands. "There it is—that paragraph. Read it aloud, Grace. Oh, I think—I think—I'll die of joy!"
Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as the marvelous truth came home to her.
"'Poor old Will certainly did have a narrow escape,'" she read, "'but thanks to the gods he is out of danger now. I went to see him yesterday—got leave for the first time in weeks—and he was looking mighty chipper. No wonder, with the good looking nurse he had.'"
Amy gave a little involuntary sound and then blushed scarlet when the girls looked at her.
"Never mind!" cried the joy incarnate that was Betty, putting an arm about her. "Just wait till you hear what he says later on. Go on, Gracie."
"'But do you know what that old boy said when I happened to comment upon the excellent nursing he must have had?'" Grace read on,while Amy tried hard to look unconcerned. "'He reached under his pillow and pulled out three pictures. "Those are my three girls," he said, and I swear there was moisture in his eyes. "You probably won't believe me, old man, but there isn't a girl or woman over here who could make me look twice at her unless she resembles one of those," and he pointed to the photographs I still held.
"'And when I opened them there was Mrs. Ford's face smiling up at me as sweet as life, and Grace with her best Gibson Girl expression—you can tell her from me that that is some picture of her—And who do you think the third was?'"
Grace paused again and looked over slyly at Amy, who turned away her face, only just showing the tip of one furiously blushing ear.
"'It was Amy Blackford,'" Grace read on, "'And it was one fine picture of her too. Gosh, I didn't know it was as serious as all that, did you, little girl? But then the war does make a fellow feel about ten years older than he really is, and the girls at home suddenly seem the most desirable and necessary things on earth. And Amy did look so sweet and comfy and altogether like home that I couldn't blame the old chap.
"'Then I pulled out the picture of the mostbeautiful girl in the world and we talked about home and—other things, you know—until we were ready to weep on each other's shoulders and the handsome nurse put me out.
"'Do you know what I'm going to do the first minute I reach good old U. S. A. territory, Betty de—'"
But the sentence was never finished, for with a quick movement, Betty snatched the letter away and hugged it to her breast while her face flamed.
"That's all you get," she cried, "the rest belongs to me. Oh, girls, did you ever hear such wonderful news? Allen strong and well and Will recovering splendidly, and both of them so sweet and loyal. Oh, I could kiss that beautiful red-haired angel who brought all this happiness to us. Where is he? Has he gone back again?"
"Yes, he has, and what do we care!" cried Grace wildly, her face radiant. "Amy, you little goose, you're not crying are you? Don't you know there isn't a thing in the world to cry about? Come on—laugh, you sweet, comfy, little thing. Don't you know that Will is getting better and keeps our pictures under his pillow? That darling, wonderful, adorable boy. Great heavens!" She stopped suddenly and a dismayed expression crept over her face. "Excuse me, please," andshe was racing up the stairs, leaving the girls to look after her, bewildered.
"What in the world," began Betty, when Amy lifted a face, shining radiantly through her tears.
"Don't you know?" she said with an understanding born of her wonderful happiness. "Grace has gone to tell her mother. You really can't blame her for being in a hurry."
A few minutes later Grace called down to Amy.
"Come on up, Honey," she commanded. "Mother wants to speak to you."
After Amy had left the room, Mollie and Betty looked at each other questioningly.
"I wonder if Mrs. Ford is going to welcome Amy into the family," chuckled Mollie.
"I hardly think so, since there isn't anything definitely settled yet," said Betty absently. She was thinking of Allen and what he had said in the part of his letter she would not let Grace read. Her eyes shone mistily and her heart sang. Allen, her Allen, was safe, and, oh, those wonderful things he had said!
"It must be nice to be as happy as they are," Mollie said, with a little sigh, and with a start Betty came out of her preoccupation.
"Oh, Mollie, dear, I—I forgot," she confessed, putting an arm about her chum. "I was so selfishly taken up with my own happiness that I didn't think!"
"It isn't your fault," said Mollie, smiling bravely. "You just can't be happy enough to suit me. You know that, don't you, Betty?"
"Of course I do, you perfect brick!" said Betty, hugging her fondly. "But we can't any of us be really happy until we know you are. But even that is coming out all right, I'm sure of it," she finished gayly, her old optimism fully restored.
Mollie started to shake her head moodily, thought better of it, and smiled instead.
"I won't be a death's head at the feast," she told herself savagely. "I suppose I'm awfully wicked, but now that they are all so happy, it makes me feel dreadfully lonesome. I'm glad from my very heart for them, of course. But, oh, Paul! Oh, little Dodo! If you will only come back to Mollie, she will never go away from you again, never, never!"
Dinner that night for the other girls was a joyful occasion. The girls dressed up in their prettiest and best, Mrs. Ford and Betty cooked a most appetizing supper, and if it had not been for the one dark cloud still hanging over them, the evening that followed would have been the happiest they had ever spent.
Mollie kept her promise to herself and enteredinto the gayety with the best of them, and no one—except Betty, perhaps—realized how much she was suffering.
However, when the lights were out that night and everybody but herself was asleep, Mollie's brave barrier broke down and she sobbed miserably into her pillow.
"I want to go home!" she cried, heart brokenly. "I can't keep this up day after day! I can't! If I don't hear some good news soon, I'll die—I know I shall."
Only the sound of the waves pounding angrily on the shore and the shrilling of a rapidly rising wind answered her, and after a while she sank into a troubled, uneasy sleep.
And how could she know as she lay there, restlessly tossing from side to side and muttering incoherently to herself, that the wind and waves were actually sending her an answer which, in her wildest moments, she could never have imagined?
Toward morning something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert.
The wind had increased in fury while they slept, till now it was howling fiercely about the house, rattling the windows and whistling shrilly through the cracks, which together with thepounding of the waves, made an almost deafening uproar.
And the rain! It came down in sheeting torrents and was driven by the rushing wind in maddened gusts against the window panes until it seemed they must give beneath the strain.
"What a storm!" cried Betty, pressing her hands against her ears to keep out the noise of it. "I wonder if that was what wakened me."
Then, becoming fully awake, she suddenly realized that she was very uncomfortable, and, looking down, discovered that the bed spread was wet.
"Mercy, it's raining in all over us!" she tried aloud, and, springing out of bed, ran over to the window and closed it with a bang. When she came back she found Grace sitting up in bed and staring at her.
"For goodness sake, what's happening?" asked the latter sleepily: "Is it the end of the world?"
"Search me," returned Betty, inelegantly. She had to almost scream to make herself heard above the noise of the storm. Furthermore, her feet were wet and her nightgown was wet, which did not serve to lift her spirits. In fact, she was feeling decidedly grumpy. "The only thing I do know," she shouted, "is that I'm nearly drowned."
"Don't you know that getting drowned at nightis strictly forbidden?" Grace began severely, but was promptly smothered by an avenging pillow. "Why don't you get in bed?" she asked, when she had succeeded in disentangling herself. Betty was sitting disconsolately on the dry side of the bed, which happened to be that occupied by Grace.
"If you want to know, just feel the covers," Betty answered. "Next time I'm going to make you sleep on the side near the window. Think I'll go in and see if Mollie and Amy are drowned yet," she added, starting for the door. "Goodness, but this is a heavy storm!"
However, when she started to close the window in the next room she noticed to her surprise that the rain had slackened, had almost stopped. But not so the wind. If anything, it had increased in fury.
She was about to turn back and tiptoe out of the room, hoping that she had not roused the girls, when her eye was caught and held by a vivid flash of red somewhere out to sea.
Startled, she stood stock still, staring out in the direction from which that light had come. It seemed weird, eery—that lonesome light sending its signal out into the storm-whipped darkness. For that it was a signal, she did not for a minute doubt.
Then it came again—green this time—a light that shot up rocketlike toward the sky, then, bursting, dived to instant annihilation in the turbulant water.
Another followed, and another, and then the truth came home to Betty. Somewhere out there In that foaming sea a ship had met with disaster, perhaps at this moment was sinking and her crew, were sending out desperate appeals for aid.
For a moment she felt almost sick with pity and excitement. Then she controlled herself and ran over to wake the girls.
"Mollie! Amy!" she cried, her voice shrill even above the shrieking of the wind. "Wake up, wake up! Oh, why don't you wake up?" as the girls opened sleep-laden eyes and stared at her stupidly.
"Wh-what's the matter," stammered Mollie, suddenly sensing almost hysterical excitement in Betty's voice and realizing that something terrible had occurred.
"Is anybody sick?" queried Amy almost fretfully, for she had been enjoying the first good sleep she had had in weeks.
"No. But somebody may be if we don't hurry up," cried Betty, wild with impatience. "Don't lie there asking foolish questions when people may be dying."
"Dying," they echoed, still staring at her stupidly.
"There's a wrecked ship out there," Betty explained, her words stumbling over each other as she tried to make the girls understand. "They are sending up signals for help, and if we don't get it for them right away it may be too late. Oh, girls, for all we know, it may be too late now!"
Mollie and Amy, at last fully awake and almost as excited as Betty herself, sprang out of bed and rushed to the window to see for themselves the signals the distressed vessel was sending up.