When the kitchen had been tidied, the two girls went into the sun-flooded living-room, and began to make it look more homelike. The dust covers were removed from the comfortable wicker chairs and the pictures, that had been turned to face the walls while the cabin was unoccupied, were dusted and straightened.
“Now, let’s take a run along the beach and gather a nice lot of drift wood,” Nann suggested. “You know Gibralter told us that this is the time of year when the first winter storm is likely to arrive.”
Dories shuddered. “I hope it won’t be like the one that wrecked Colonel Wadbury’s house eight years ago. If it were, it might undermine all of these cabins, and, how pray, could we escape if the road was under water?”
“Oh, that isn’t likely to happen,” Nann said comfortingly. “Our beach is higher than that lowland. It it does, we’d find a way out, but, Dories, please don’t be imagining things. We have enough mystery to puzzle us without conjuring up frightful catastrophes that probably never will happen.”
Dories stopped at her aunt’s door to tell her their plans, but the old woman was either asleep or feined slumber, and so, tiptoeing that she might not disturb her, the girl went out on the beach, where Nann awaited her. They were hatless, and as the sun had mounted higher, even the bright colored sweater-coats had been discarded.
“It’s such a perfect Indian summer day,” Nann said. “I don’t even see a tiny, misty cloud.” As she spoke, she shaded her eyes with one hand and scanned the horizon.
“Isn’t the island clear? Even that fog bank that we saw early this morning has melted away.” Then, whirling about, Dories inquired, “Nann, if we should see something white coming around that bleak gray island, what do you think it would be?”
“Why, the Phantom Yacht, of course.”
“What would you do, if it were?”
“I don’t know, Dori. I hadn’t even thought of the coming of that boat as a possibility, and yet—” Nann turned a glowing face, “I don’t know why it might not happen. That little woman, for the sake of her children, might try a second time to win her father’s forgiveness. If she came, what a desolate homecoming it would be; the old house in ruin and the fate of her father unknown.”