Marjorie closed her lips tightly; this piece of evidence cleared them from implication in the theft.
“But Milton can telephone them and invite them to dinner if you wish,” continued Miss Vaughn, anxious to do anything to divert the girls’ minds from their misfortune.
“Oh, do!” cried Marjorie, enthusiastically, but for a reason very different from the one Miss Vaughn believed.
Glad of the excuse to escape from the room and from the presence of the two girls whom he so thoroughly disliked, Milton Crowell withdrew to carry out Marjorie’s wish. A moment later the whole party separated.
As soon as Marjorie and Lily were alone, the latter began again with her questions.
“You’re on the war-path again, Marj!” she exclaimed. “What have you up your sleeve now?”
“Nothing definite, Lil,” replied Marjorie, smilingly. “But that Crowell boy acts queerly—and I mean to try to find out more, before I leave!”
“Righto!” agreed Lily, throwing herself upon the bed, for she was exceedingly weary. “But what makes you so anxious to see McDaniel and Cryton?”
“I don’t know myself,” returned her companion. “Let’s take a nap now, Lil; maybe something will be revealed to us in a dream!”
When the girls returned to the porch at six o’clock, they found all three of the young men assembled. Marjorie greeted the new-comers coolly, taking care to question them cleverly as to their whereabouts since the scouts’ departure. But both Cryton and McDaniel told, without any hesitation, all they had been doing in San Francisco during the girls’ absence. They, in turn, demanded all the details of the girls’ trip, which ended in such disaster.