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 readthe telegram through while her face grew whiter and her lips closed in atense line. With a queer little sound in her throat she turned away andhanded it to Betty.
"Read it," she commanded in a choked voice.
Mrs. Ford put an arm about Mollie while Betty read aloud and the girlscrowded 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 itaright?"
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 Graceand Amy followed, mute with sympathy.
"Yes; or by this time they may be dead!" sobbed Mollie, refusing to becomforted. "They must have met with some accident or they wouldn't havestayed away all n-night."
"Maybe they ran away," suggested Grace, trying hard to think ofsomething cheering to say. "They've done it before, you know."
"Yes," agreed Mollie, sinking into a porch chair and searchingdesperately for a handkerchief in her pocketless bathing suit. "But theyalways came home before night. I know it must be something awfullyserious to keep them away over night."
Mrs. Ford was very much worried and disturbed, but she neverthelessmanaged a bright smile.
"As you say, they probably ran away," she said. "Only this time theyhave wandered too far and haven't been able to find their way back. Butif 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 andmaking for the door, "since everything seems a good deal worse than itis on an empty stomach, I'm going to give you some lunch and we'lldecide what to do afterward."
Left alone, the girls gazed helplessly at each other. Mollie had stoppedsobbing and was staring moodily out at the ocean, her eyes and noseswollen with weeping.
"I'll have to go home, of course," she said suddenly, breaking a silencefilled with unhappy thoughts. "I don't know that I'll be any good, but Ican at least comfort mother. I'm sorry," she gave them a wistful,apologetic little glance that went straight to their hearts and broughtthe tears to their eyes, "to break up the party."
"You darling," cried Betty, trying to laugh and not making a very greatsuccess 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 cando very much good by going home."
"I could comfort mother," repeated Mollie, in a flat tone, as though shewere repeating a lesson.
"But she said not to come," suggested Grace. "She said she was doingeverything possible--"
"I know," interrupted Mollie, wearily. "Of course she would say not tocome. And I suppose," she added, dabbing impatiently at her eyes, "allI'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 thedoorway and the girls jumped to their feet.
"Here we are, letting you do all the work again," cried Bettyself-reproachfully. "I guess we'd rather have it out here, but we'llbring it out ourselves. Please go over there, get into the swing, anddon't stir until we say you may." Betty had a pretty manner, half ofdeference, half of _camaraderie_, with older people that made them loveher. Mrs. Ford patted her cheek with a little smile and obeyed hercommand while the three girls ran into the kitchen to bring out thesandwiches 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 hashappened 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 andhope, which in youth can never long be forced into the background, beganto revive.
"In the first place," Betty argued, as she began to clear away thedishes and Amy rose to help her, "it couldn't have been an accident, oryour mother would have read about it in the papers. The children are oldenough to tell their names and where they live."
"I know," said Mollie, while the troublesome tears welled to her eyesagain. "But it's possible they may have been unconscious, and then theywouldn't be able to tell anything."
"But there would have been at least an announcement describing thechildren," Amy argued in support of Betty.
"And, anyway, pretty nearly everybody in Deepdale knows the twins,"Grace added.
"Well, then, there are only two or three things left that might havehappened," said Mollie, her lips quivering. "It's barely possible theymay have wandered off into the woods and gotten lost. In that casesomebody will have to hurry up and find them or they will just staythere and s-starve! And that's almost worse than being run over."
"Well, with everybody in Deepdale, civilians as well as police,searching for them," said Betty confidently, "I don't think there isvery much chance of their starving to death. If that's the solution, Ishouldn't wonder but that they are safe at home now with everybodyrejoicing."
Mollie's face brightened a little at this picture, but almostimmediately clouded over again.
"But we don't know that," she said. "And until we do, I'm not going tolet myself get too happy."
"I wonder," she said suddenly, after the girls had cleared away thelunch and had perched themselves on the porch railing, "just what Iought to do first. Send a telegram to mother, I suppose," answering herown question.
"Yes, I think I would," said Betty, adding, as Mollie got up withcharacteristic impulsiveness and started for the house: "Do you mindtelling us what you are going to say in it--about going home, I mean?"
Mollie paused uncertainly.
"I--I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's noquestion but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn'tonly be in the way."
"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost acertainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps arefound already, and in that case you would have all your trip fornothing. I don't like to advise--"
"Oh, please do," Mollie begged, adding with a pathetic little smile: "Ifeel so awfully lonesome, trying to decide everything all by myself."
"You poor little girl," said the woman tenderly, then fearing lestsympathy would only make the girl feel worse, added hurriedly: "In thatcase I should most strongly advise that you wait a day or two at leastand give things a chance to straighten out. At the end of that time, ifthey haven't been found and you still think you ought to go, we'll packup everything and go along with you, of course."
"That's what I'll do then," agreed Mollie, relieved to have the questionsettled for her. "And now," she added, making for the door once more,"I'm going to get into my street things and wiz down to that station inrecord time. Who wants to come with me?"
It seemed everybody did, and in a very short time the girls had changedfrom their bathing suits to their street clothes and were ready for thedash to the station, which was about two miles from their house.
They all climbed into Mollie's car, and the big machine started slowlybackward down the steep incline.
"Better hold on," Mollie warned them. "I've ne
ver done quite so steep ahill as this backward, and the old boy may balk. Take your time, oldman," addressing the car, as it showed a tendency to pick up speed toorapidly. "Of course we're in a hurry, but we don't want to land on ourears. That's the way--gently now. All right--we're off!" as they reachedthe foot of the hill in safety and swung around into the road. "Nowlet's see how long it will take you to reach that station."
As a matter of fact, it took scarcely any time at all, for the demon ofspeed seemed to have taken possession of Mollie, and she drove sorecklessly that even the girls, who were used to her daring, werestartled.
Yet something about the young driver's straight little back and tightlycompressed lips kept them from protesting.
However, the wild ride came to an end without accident, and the girlstumbled out of the machine and on to the station platform. They lookedabout them, but the only person in sight was an unpromising lookingperson with a bald head--though he could not have been overthirty-five--beaked nose, and small red-rimmed eyes.
This decidedly unattractive individual lounged against the door of thewaiting room and eyed the girls with insolent admiration.
"Anything I can do for you?" he asked, as he saw that they hesitated."Always willing to oblige the ladies," he added.
The girls exchanged a glance, then Betty approached the lounger who hadthe grace to straighten up as she addressed him.
"We want to send a telegram," she explained coldly. "We understood wecould send one from here."
"Sure! That's me," he responded with alacrity. "Right this way, ladies."
The girls followed him reluctantly into a little square booth-likeplace, and Mollie scribbled a telegram on the blank he gave her. Thenthey hurried out to the machine again. A little way down the road Amyturned and looked back. The fellow had resumed his lounging position andwas looking after them with his little red-rimmed eyes.
"Ugh! wasn't he awful?" said Betty, as Mollie rounded a turn in the roadon two wheels. "I'm glad we don't have to see him often, he'd give methe nightmare."
But Mollie did not answer. Her mind was once more on the twins, and shewas repeating over and over the same old question.
"What has happened--what has happened? What could have happened?"
"Betty," she said aloud, so suddenly that Betty started, "there's justone thing we didn't think of as being a solution. It's strange, too, forit is the most probable solution of all."
"What?" asked Betty anxiously.
"Suppose--" said Mollie, her voice so low that Betty had to bend forwardto catch the words. "Suppose they have been kidnapped!"