The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 20

"Well, it isn't," said Grace, adding, as she dug her toes more deeply into the yielding sand: "And if we don't hear more news of Will pretty soon, I'll just die, that's all. I can't stand it!"

"There's your mother," cried Betty suddenly, glad of an excuse to change the subject. "I think she's calling us, too. Come on, let's go."

Nothing loath, they got to their feet, shook the sand from their suits, and hurried to the bluff where Mrs. Ford stood awaiting them.

As they clambered up toward her they noticed that she looked excited and was holding a yellow envelope in her hand.

"The trunks have come," she said, as they ran up to her. "A big lumbering red-haired fellow brought them from the station a few minutes ago. He also brought this," indicating the envelope in her hand.

"What is it?" they cried, a strange premonition of evil tightening about their hearts.

"A telegram for Mollie!"

Mollie turned a little pale under her tan and took the yellow envelope gingerly, as though it had been poisoned, or contained some T. N. T.

explosive.

"Who on earth--" she began, then interrupted herself, and with trembling fingers tore the envelope open. The girls watched her, wide-eyed and tense.

"It's from mother," she cried, then crushed the paper in her hands and looked around at the sympathetic faces with eyes grown dark with fear.

"Girls," she said, "I--I'm afraid to read it--I--"

CHAPTER XVI

THE SHADOW OF DISASTER

Betty put a steadying arm about Mollie and asked gently:

"Would it make it any easier if I were to read it, dear?"

"No, oh, no!" cried Mollie, then smoothed out the crushed paper and read the telegram through while her face grew whiter and her lips closed in a tense line. With a queer little sound in her throat she turned away and handed it to Betty.

"Read it," she commanded in a choked voice.

Mrs. Ford put an arm about Mollie while Betty read aloud and the girls crowded closer.

It was a brief, paralyzing message the telegram contained.

"Twins are gone. Were not home last night, and am wild with anxiety. No need your coming home. Am doing everything possible to find them. MOTHER."

"The twins!" gasped Amy.

"Gone!" added Grace, stupefied. "Oh, Betty, are you sure you read it aright?"

For answer, Betty handed her the telegram and turned to comfort Mollie, who was sobbing bitterly.

"I knew I shouldn't have gone away," she was saying over and over again.

"I knew I should have stayed at home."

"But your staying at home probably wouldn't have made any difference,"

argued Betty soothingly.

"And by this time they may have been found, anyway," added Mrs. Ford, gently leading Mollie toward the house, Betty at her side, while Grace and Amy followed, mute with sympathy.

"Yes; or by this time they may be dead!" sobbed Mollie, refusing to be comforted. "They must have met with some accident or they wouldn't have stayed away all n-night."

"Maybe they ran away," suggested Grace, trying hard to think of something cheering to say. "They've done it before, you know."

"Yes," agreed Mollie, sinking into a porch chair and searching desperately for a handkerchief in her pocketless bathing suit. "But they always came home before night. I know it must be something awfully serious to keep them away over night."

Mrs. Ford was very much worried and disturbed, but she nevertheless managed a bright smile.

"As you say, they probably ran away," she said. "Only this time they have wandered too far and haven't been able to find their way back. But if your mother has notified the police, as she surely has by this time, they are sure to be found. And now," she added, rising briskly and making for the door, "since everything seems a good deal worse than it is on an empty stomach, I'm going to give you some lunch and we'll decide what to do afterward."

Left alone, the girls gazed helplessly at each other. Mollie had stopped sobbing and was staring moodily out at the ocean, her eyes and nose swollen with weeping.

"I'll have to go home, of course," she said suddenly, breaking a silence filled with unhappy thoughts. "I don't know that I'll be any good, but I can at least comfort mother. I'm sorry," she gave them a wistful, apologetic little glance that went straight to their hearts and brought the tears to their eyes, "to break up the party."

"You darling," cried Betty, trying to laugh and not making a very great success of it, "do you think we care a rap about our old party? Only,"

she added thoughtfully, "as you say yourself, I don't see that you can do very much good by going home."

"I could comfort mother," repeated Mollie, in a flat tone, as though she were repeating a lesson.

"But she said not to come," suggested Grace. "She said she was doing everything possible--"

"I know," interrupted Mollie, wearily. "Of course she would say not to come. And I suppose," she added, dabbing impatiently at her eyes, "all I'd do would be to weep anyway, and make things about ten times worse."

"Do you want your lunch inside or out here?" Mrs. Ford asked from the doorway and the girls jumped to their feet.

"Here we are, letting you do all the work again," cried Betty self-reproachfully. "I guess we'd rather have it out here, but we'll bring it out ourselves. Please go over there, get into the swing, and don't stir until we say you may." Betty had a pretty manner, half of deference, half of _camaraderie_, with older people that made them love her. Mrs. Ford patted her cheek with a little smile and obeyed her command while the three girls ran into the kitchen to bring out the sandwiches and cake that she had already prepared.

And all the time Mollie sat motionless, staring out over the ocean, apparently unconscious of everything that was going on around her.

"Little Dodo and Paul," she said over and over to herself. "What has happened to them? Oh, I must go home, I must!"

"Come to your lunch," called Betty.

After lunch Mollie began to take a less gloomy view of the situation and hope, which in youth can never long be forced into the background, began to revive.

"In the first place," Betty argued, as she began to clear away the dishes and Amy rose to help her, "it couldn't have been an accident, or your mother would have read about it in the papers. The children are old enough to tell their names and where they live."

"I know," said Mollie, while the troublesome tears welled to her eyes again. "But it's possible they may have been unconscious, and then they wouldn't be able to tell anything."

"But there would have been at least an announcement describing the children," Amy argued in support of Betty.