“I am!” Dories nodded miserably. “I wouldn’t any more dare go into this cottage than—than——”
“Then we won’t.” Nann took her friend by the hand and together they went down the back steps, and Dories said: “I’d rather go home by the front beach if you don’t mind. It’s more open. There’s something so uncanny about the swamps at the back.”
“Anything to please,” was the laughing reply. As they rounded the cottage, Nann looked curiously at the upper windows, and was sure that she saw the same blind open ever so little, then close again. She said nothing of this, and tried to change the trend of her companion’s thoughts by talking about Gibralter Strait and wondering if they would see him during that day which had just dawned. Nann was deciding that she would take Gib into her confidence. A boy as fearless as he was would not mind entering the Burton cottage and finding out why that upper blind had opened and closed as it seemed to do.
As they neared their home cabin, Dories became more like her natural self and even skipped along the hard beach, laughing back at Nann as she called, “Another glorious, sparkling day! I hope something interesting is going to happen.”
“I believe something will,” Nann replied. They were nearing the front steps when Dories stood still, pointing, “Look at that stone lying in the middle of the top step. How do you suppose it ever got there?”
Nann shook her head and, leaping up the steps, she lifted the small rock, then turned back, exclaiming: “Just what I thought! Here is today’s note from your ghost. It’s much too clever for us.” Then she read: “In nine days you shall know all.”
Not wishing to awaken Miss Moore at so early an hour, the girls tiptoed down the steps and went around to the back of the cabin.
“Let’s look in the woodshed by daylight,” Nann suggested as she unbolted the door. “Nothing within, just as I supposed,” she remarked. “Humm-ho. We’re not very good detectives, I guess.”
They started walking toward the kitchen. “But why try to find out what the mysteries are about if every day brings us one nearer to the time when we are to know all?” Dories inquired.
Nann laughed. “O, I’d heaps rather ferret the thing out for myself than be told.” Then she said more seriously: “Honestly, Dori, I don’t think the notes refer to the mystery of the old ruin at all. I think, if that is ever solved, we’ll have to find it out for ourselves.”