“And that's just what she did,” decided Nan. “How foolish of me not to think of it before.”
With this enigmatical observation Nan prepared to leave the room by this very means. She was agile, and the sill of the window was only three feet from the ground. It was through this opening that she had helped Margaret Llewellen into her room on the first occasion that odd child had visited her.
Nan jumped out, let the screen down softly, and hurried across the unfenced yard to the road. She knew well enough when she reached the public track, despite the darkness for the mirey clay stuck to her shoes and made the walking difficult.
She flashed her lamp once, to get her bearings, and then set off down the lane toward the swamp road. There was not a light in any house she passed, not even in Mr. Fen Llewellen's cottage. “I guess Margaret's fast asleep,” murmured Nan, as she passed swiftly on.
The rain beat down upon the girl steadily, and Nan found it shivery out here in the dark and storm. However, her reason for coming, Nan conceived, was a very serious one. This was no foolish escapade.
By showing her light now and then she managed to follow the dark lane without stepping off into any of the deep puddles which lay beside the path. She came, finally, to the spot where Rafe had met her and Tom with his lantern that evening. Here stood the great tree with a big hollow in it, Margaret Llewellen's favorite playhouse.
For a moment Nan hesitated. The place looked so dark and there might be something alive in the hollow.
But she plucked up courage and flashed her lamp into it. The white ray played about the floor of the hollow. The other Llewellen children dared not come here, for Margaret punished them if they disturbed anything belonging to her.
What Nan was looking for was not in sight. She stepped inside, and raised the torch. The rotting wood had been neatly scooped out, and where the aperture grew smaller at the top a wide shelf had been made by the ingenious Margaret. Nan had never been in this hide-out before.
“It must be here! It must be here!” she kept telling herself, and stood on her tiptoes to feel along the shelf, which was above her head.