CHAPTER XXII
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN
"Well," said Mollie, with a sigh, "I fancy there isn't very much use ofour sitting around here in our bathing suits. I, for one, don't feellike swimming any more to-day."
"Nor I," agreed Grace.
"And I," said Amy, turning away with a shudder from the water where shehad so closely come to death, "feel as if I never wanted to see thewater again."
"Oh, but you will get over that," Betty assured her quickly. "I don'tblame you a bit for feeling that way now--I do myself--but after a whileyou will be just as crazy about it as ever."
"I don't know," said Amy slowly. "When you have once come face to facewith 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 youprobably 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 it after a while," Bettypointed out. "You see, we girls are pretty well out of practice. It's along time since we did any swimming to amount to anything, and ourmuscles are weak and flabby. Why, we all got tired out to-day twice asquickly as we ordinarily would."
"And you tried to swim too far," added Mollie. "That's the reason yourpoor old muscles protested."
"It might have happened to any one of us," Grace agreed. "All we need isa little practice to swim as well as ever again."
"Oh, do you think so?" asked Amy eagerly, while the color came back intoher pale cheeks. "If I could only be sure of that!"
Betty was about to reply, but at that minute a voice hailed them fromthe direction of the house and they jumped up to see what was wanted.
"It's mother," said Grace. "And she seems to be waving something at us."
"It's an envelope," cried Mollie. "It may be a letter from mother."
She started running toward the house, with Grace, thinking of Will, ather heels, while Betty helped Amy to her feet.
"Are you feeling stronger now?" she asked. "Or would you rather rest alittle longer?"
"Oh, I'm all right," Amy assured her, though for a minute she had tocling to Betty for support.
They made their way rather slowly after the others. Before they hadreached the foot of the bluff Mollie came scrambling down again and rantoward them wildly.
"What do you think has happened now?" she cried, taking Amy's other armand 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 Mollieshook her head.
"No such luck," she returned. "But we have found out one thing. Thoseblessed 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 ofthe porch while the others crowded about her eagerly, "from some oldrascal--oh, if I could only get my hands on him!" she paused to glareabout her ferociously, but they impatiently hurried her on.
"Yes! But the letter!" Betty urged.
"It was from a man who demanded twenty thousand dollars--" she pausedagain, while the girls gasped and crowded closer, "for the return of thetwins."
"Then they were kidnapped!" cried Grace.
"Yes. But they ran away first," explained Mollie, almost beside herselfwith anger and excitement. "And this old--brute! found them, and, Isuppose because they were well dressed, thought he saw a way to makesome 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 donothing 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 tofind 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 hadbeen 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, ifthey had only fallen in with some respectable person instead ofthat--that--" she could think of nothing bad enough to call the man whohad stolen the twins.
"Of course," said Mrs. Ford--it was the first time she had spoken--"yourmother showed the letter to the police."
"Of course," Mollie agreed, two angry spots of color in her cheeks. "Andequally of course they have promised to do all in their power toapprehend the villain. But it makes me wild to just sit here and donothing!"
"But I don't see what there is to do," said Amy.
"Neither do I," cried Mollie, jumping to her feet and beginning to pacerestlessly up and down the porch. "That's the worst of it. I feel soabsolutely helpless. And all the time I have no way of knowing whathorrible 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 motherhe isn't going to take a chance on losing it by harming the twins."
"I know," cried Mollie, stopping in her restless promenade to regardBetty. "But how in the world is mother going to raise any such sum ofmoney? Twenty thousand dollars--why, we haven't that much ready cash inthe world!"
"But he doesn't know that," Grace pointed out. "And as long as he keepson hoping--"
"But how long is he going to keep on hoping?" cried Mollie, turning onher. "He knows mighty well that if mother had that much money she wouldmove heaven and earth to get it together and get the twins back. And thevery fact that she hasn't--"
"Oh, but that doesn't always follow," Betty broke in eagerly. "There area great many people who, even if they had the money, would try to bringthe 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 willprobably lie mighty low for a few weeks, knowing that the police arehunting for him."
"For the next few weeks, yes," admitted Mollie. "But he isn't going towait forever, and when he finds out that mother can't raise the moneywhat would be the natural thing for him to do? Get the twins out of theway, of course," she said, answering her own question.
"But there is always the chance--yes even the probability--" insistedBetty, "that before very long the police will be able to find the fellowand recover the twins."
"Yes," Grace added, "that kind of criminal is never very clever, youknow. They are bound to leave something undone that will incriminatethem."
Mollie groaned and sank into a chair.
"And in the meantime," she said, "all I have to do is just to sit hereand wait and act as if nothing had happened. Oh, I can't! I've simplygot to do something!"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know how a girl can do anything that the policecan't," sighed Grace, adding wistfully: "Goodness, wouldn't I like achance 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 ownunhappy thoughts and no one noticed that the sun had gone under a cloudand that the wind was rising.
It was the increasing thunder of the waves on the rocks that finallystartled 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 suddenlyrealized that they still had on their bathing suits.
"I guess we're going crazy--and no wonder," said Grace, as they startedindoors to change their things.
"Has any one any idea what time it is?" asked Mollie. "I'm sure Ihaven't."
"It must be after twelve, for I'm beginning to feel hungry," Bettyanswered.
"And I'm fe
eling faint," Amy added. "I shouldn't wonder if a cup of teawould go awfully well."
"You poor little thing," said Betty, putting an arm about her. "Nowonder you feel faint. We should have given you something to strengthenyou long ago. I don't know what we've been thinking of!"
"It's all my fault," said Mollie contritely, noticing suddenly how whiteAmy's face was and how dark were the circles under her eyes. "I let myown affairs make me forget everything else. Why didn't you saysomething, Amy?"
"I didn't think of it myself," Amy answered truthfully, "until Bettyspoke of being hungry. Girls," she paused outside her door to sniffinquiringly, "do I smell something, or am I dreaming?"
"I'll say you smell something," Grace answered, sniffing hungrily in herturn. "It's mother getting lunch, of course. I don't know what we everwould 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 theirhair.
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 withthe 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 thatshe clutched so desperately was that he had not died, or surely herfather would have heard. In this case, no news was good news to acertain extent.
And as for Betty, brave as she had tried to be since that terrible nightwhen she had read Allen's name among the missing, even she felt hercourage slipping--slipping, and began to wonder if after all, hoping didany good.
To-day, as she stood before the mirror, mechanically putting up her hairand looking through and past her own reflection, her eyes suddenly losttheir preoccupied stare and became focused upon herself. For the firsttime in days she was seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness shehad so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, her eyes suddenly filledwith tears--tears almost of self-pity.
For the mirror told her, what she had scarcely realized, just how muchshe had suffered. Her eyes, usually so bright and merry, were dark andbrooding. Her face looked thin and drawn, and her lips--those lips thathad always seemed to smile even when her eyes were grave--had apathetic, wistful droop, and there were lines, yes, actually lines,about them.
"If Allen should see you," she told herself tremulously, "he probablywouldn't know you, Betty."
Yet all the while she knew that if it were possible for Allen to see heror for her to see Allen, the face in the mirror would disappear as if bymagic and the old Betty would return, for joy would have taken its placein 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 menacinglyand the wind wailed shrilly around the house.
"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, stretching out her arms in an agony ofentreaty. "Somewhere you must hear me calling you. Allen, come back tome, dear!"