With Frieda’s arm around her, Marjorie stumbled out of the room and up the stairs. Frieda was the stronger now, of the two, but it was only because the thing did not touch her so deeply as it did her companion. Indeed, she suffered more for Marjorie’s sake than for her own. The canoe race meant little to her, and the house-party less. The canoe trip had been the main event to her; she even shrank a little shyly at the idea of such an exclusive resort and so gorgeous a house. She feared that she might say and do the wrong things, and she dreaded Ruth’s silent ridicule. But she realized how much it all meant to Marjorie.
Marjorie sank upon the bed, disconsolately refusing to eat. Frieda, however, partook of the breakfast, and then went over to examine the windows. Perhaps there might be another lattice.
But this old tumble-down house boasted of no such decoration, and if there had been one, it would no doubt have been so rotten that an attempt to descend by it would have been fatal. She sighed and turned away.
“We can see the creek plainly from this window,” she said; “let’s sit by it. Maybe somebody might come along, and we could call for help.”
“We wouldn’t dare—they’d hear us and persecute us all the more,” objected Marjorie.
“If the scouts came, we could semaphore to them,” remarked Frieda. “They’d be near enough to read it.”
“If they came, Frieda!” repeated Marjorie, sarcastically. Nevertheless, she pulled a chair over to the window, and sat down. For some minutes she gazed idly out of the window, watching the patches of light made by the bright morning sun flickering on the water. The ripple of the current, as the creek passed over the stones, was the only sound that broke the stillness on that summer morning.
“You can’t see very far, though,” she observed; “there must be a bend up there.”
She got up from her chair and leaned against the narrow frame, in her endeavor to see as far as she could. For a moment the motion of the wind in the foliage deceived her; she thought she saw something coming, only, however, to find herself a minute later, disappointed.
She was still leaning in this position when suddenly her attitude became tense, alert, eager! Was she to be deluded again? She waited in breathless anticipation. From around the bend, she distinguished a narrow birch-bark canoe glide into view!