"Ted Mackay!" repeated Dot. "That's Linda's friend—the one who rescued her before."
"Well, he didn't rescue her today," asserted Bess. "There were no bodies in the plane. But then it was almost completely destroyed."
At this gruesome remark, Kitty immediately burst out crying, and even Dot Crowley could find no reason to be hopeful any longer, and wiped the tears from her eyes. Oh, it was dreadful to think of their two lovely friends as dead! Worse still, for them to meet death in such a horrible way!
"It may not have been their plane," Bess reminded her companions, although in her heart she felt sure that it was. "Or, even if it is, they might still be alive, if they had the nerve to use their parachutes."
"They had plenty of nerve!" responded Dot. "But even if they jumped, it isn't likely they'd still be alive in this terrible weather."
"If they were, we should probably have heard from them," said Ralph, glumly.
Nobody spoke for some time; resuming of the games was out of the question now. Finally, to break the silence, and to have something to do, Kitty rang the bell for the club matron to serve tea and sandwiches.
Over the tea-cups a low murmur of conversation finally arose, but it was all in a gloomy undertone. Nothing could have been more depressing than the atmosphere in that room—until the door was suddenly flung open by a small boy—Louise Haydock's brother.
"Whoopee! Whoopee!" he shouted, throwing his hat straight into Ralph Clavering's tea-cup. "The girls are alive and safe!"
"Linda? Louise?" cried everybody at once. In the excitement all eyes were upon the boy; nobody noticed that Bess Hulbert's face went ghastly white.