So tense had been the interest that they could not believe their ears when Margaret made this announcement. Alexander was the first to recover his power of speech. Thumping the floor indignantly, he delivered himself thus:
"Suffering cats! Can you beat it!"
CHAPTER XIII
ALEXANDER ENGAGES IN SOME HISTORICAL
RESEARCH
When the chorus of surprise and bewilderment and indignation had at last subsided, they fell to discussing in its every detail this new phase of the journal and its abrupt ending.
"I tell you," announced Alexander, thumping a sofa-cushion to emphasize his remark, "something happened to that kid just as she got to the last,—something happened, sure as wash-day! And it wasn't anything pleasant, either! Do you get me?"
"You must be right!" agreed Corinne. "When you think of what was going to happen the next day, and the danger she was in, and the fact that this journal is torn in two, and all that, I'm positive something terrible must have taken place just then. Poor little Alison! How are we ever going to know what it was, or whether she ever got out of it all right and got back home! If the end of the other half of the journal was maddening, this is about forty-five times worse! I feel as if I'd go absolutely crazy if this mystery isn't cleared up!"
"There's one thing you must remember," suggested the practical Bess. "History tells us that the poison plot was discovered in time and didn't do Washington any harm; and that Phœbe Fraunces gave him the warning, and he just cleared up the whole thing, and hanged the worst one of the conspirators,—whoever he might be! Now, if that's the case, don't you think we could take it for granted that Alison's affairs turned out all right, too?"
"Not necessarily!" retorted Corinne. "Remember, also, that Washington didn't know anything about her, and that that horrid steward had been watching her and plotting about her; and so had Corbie, too. Who knows but what they took her and carried her off before the thing was to take place, in order to have her out of the way!"