The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 29

"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 a.s.sumed. 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!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SHADOW LIFTS

"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 I wouldn'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.