Arden hung up and turned sorrowfully toward her friends.
“I might have known it,” she said. “Of course we couldn’t do anything that way. It was a desperate chance at best.”
“Too bad, Arden,” Terry soothed. “I still think it was a good idea. But let’s get out of here; our young friend,” she indicated the curious clerk, “is awfully interested in us.”
“We’d better be starting for home, anyway,” Arden suggested. “Your mother might worry.”
So they left the little village, which was quite deserted now in the late afternoon, and wearily put the car away for the night in the garage of the little white house.
Mrs. Landry was interested to learn all that had happened, and urged them to keep up their spirits. Somewhat woefully, the girls smiled at her and agreed at least to try further.
After the evening meal, when they gathered in the living room, Arden and Sim decided to write letters home but thought it best not to mention the new “mystery.”
Arden sat at the small wicker desk, pen and paper before her, and got as far as “Dearest Mother.” But her mind was far away and after this auspicious beginning she looked up from the paper dreamily.
Poor Dimitri! Where could he be? And Olga—and the paper and the snuffbox. Then Arden, drawing a line through the beginning of her letter, wrote down the queer words from the envelope.
Ser