North went away, and poor Minna spent the rest of that day in alternate decisions for and against the directions of the kidnappers.
Granniss tried his best to dissuade her from what he deemed a foolish deed.
“To begin with,” he argued, “I can’t believe in kidnappers. How could they have abducted Betty, in broad daylight, with half a dozen people looking for her to come out of the house?”
“I don’t know,” said poor Minna, dejectedly, “but oh, Rodney, it doesn’t mean anything to ask such questions as that! For how could any other thing happen? I mean, how do you explain Betty’s disappearance without being kidnapped, any more easily than by such means? How explain Fred’s death? How explain anything? Now, the only chance,—as the letter says,—is this plan of theirs. Shall I try it?”
“Look at it this way, Mrs Varian,” Granniss said at last. “Suppose you throw that money over the cliff. It’s by no means certain that they will retrieve it safely.”
“But that’s their business. It’s full moon now, and at twelve o’clock the sea will be bright as day. There’ll be no spying boat around at that hour, and they will watch the box fall, get it quickly, and go away. Then they will send Betty back!”
Minna’s face always lighted up with a happy radiance when she spoke of the return of Betty.
“But think a minute. Suppose by some chance they don’t get the money,—suppose there is some stray boat out at that hour. Suppose the parcel gets caught on the way down——”
“It can’t if I drop it right down from the overhang. And I’d have you to protect and watch over my own safety,—oh, Rodney, I must do it!”
And so, despite Granniss’ dissuasion, in defiance of her own misgivings as to the genuineness of the anonymous bargainers, the poor distracted mother made up her mind to take the slim chance of recovering her lost child by the desperate method offered her.