“I think so,” said Nelly. “I think he has told her everything. But of course I haven’t talked to her, yet. Only Uncle seems to know just what to say.”
“Of course,” said Tante, again.
“At first she cried,” said Nelly, “when she came from the fire. I thought she would make herself ill. But since the sail she has cheered up. She—she smiled at me!” Nelly was too shy to tell that Anne had kissed her.
She said that Anne was having a nap now, to make up for the lost hours of the night before. Nancy asked if they had found out who set the fire, and Nelly said that they suspected the Indian woman. Cap’n Sackett had caught her wandering about the place while the fire was going on. And some boys had found her canoe beached below Idlewild, but quite empty. Somebody had got into Mr. Poole’s cellar, where there was a store of liquor. She was held in arrest on suspicion, Nelly said; but that was not so uncomfortable as it sounded.
“I don’t believe Sal Seguin set the fire. Never in the world!” cried Beverly, championing her dusky friend. “Why should she do it?”
“She hated the white men,” said Norma, “I remember that.”
“She tried to tell something,” said Nelly, “but she gets so excited nobody can understand her gibberish. She keeps saying ‘No, no, no!’ when anybody asks her questions. But she glowered and grumbled when she caught sight of Anne last night. That looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”
“Too suspicious,” declared Beverly. “Sal wouldn’t give herself away like that, if she had really set the fire. She is not so foolish. She had a grudge against Anne for something Anne said when she first came down here. But Sal wouldn’t burn Idlewild for that! I don’t believe any woman did it,” said Beverly, loyally.
“But what was she doing there in the middle of the night?” asked Nancy. “You know we saw her once prowling around at midnight, and several times since then the boys have spied her near Idlewild.”
“I am going to find out, if I can,” said Beverly. “I’ll go to see her.”