CHAPTER XVII
EILEEN EXPLAINS
It was an amazed, bewildered, and sheepish group that faced each other in the light of the electric torch after the departure of the unknown man. Phyllis was the first to recover self-possession.
“Well, we might as well go indoors,” she remarked, in her decided way. “There’s evidently nothing to be gained by staying out here in the storm!”
The others, still too benumbed in mind to have any initiative of their own, followed her obediently. Only when they were at the door did Leslie arouse to the immediate urgencies.
“Do please be very quiet and not wake Aunt Marcia!” she begged. “I’m afraid the effect on her would be very bad if she were to realize all that has happened here.”
They entered the bungalow on tiptoe, removed their drenched wraps, and sank down in the nearest chairs by the dying fire.
“And now,” remarked Phyllis, constituting herself spokesman, as she threw on a fresh log and some smaller sticks, “we’d be awfully obliged to you, Ted and Eileen, if you’ll kindly explain what this mystery is all about!”
“I don’t see why under the sun you had to come butting into it!” muttered Ted, resentfully, nursing some bruises he had sustained in the recent fray.
“Please remember,” retorted Phyllis, “that if I hadn’t come butting into it—and Leslie and Rags,—you’d probably be very much the worse for wear at this moment!”