"It's the storm," she said. "It gets on some people's nerves. I hope the roof isn't leaking; it nearly always does in one of these storms. What were you afraid of?"
"I don't exactly know," said Pearl.
"Would you like me to go back to your room with you? Would you like to sleep on my sofa?" Edna asked.
But that was too ignominious. A faint wild dawn was breaking, and Pearl knew that with the night her terror had gone. She went back to bed.
The next morning the wind was still blowing like a hurricane from the south, though the rain had stopped. Great waves were running up the beach, in some places as far as the sand hills, and forming a long, narrow pool at the base of the dunes. As soon as lessons were over Antonia dragged Miss Exeter to the beach—it was no easy matter, for the wind blew the sand stingingly against face and hands. There was no use in going to the public beach that morning, for the bathing apparatus of barrels and life lines had been washed away, the bathhouses were threatened, and there was a rumor that the sea was washing into Lake Agawam.
Pearl and Antonia sat on their own dunes, watching the wild scene, and suddenly Antonia said, "Look here, Miss Exeter, I want to ask you something. Perhaps I oughtn't to."
Pearl had so completely lost any sense of having a guilty secret that she answered tranquilly, "Go ahead."
"Is Uncle Anthony in love with you—like Mr. Williams?"
Ah, Pearl knew what that meant: Antonia had taken a long drive with her mother and Miss Wellington the day before! She picked her words carefully.
"I only saw your uncle once," she said.