Then suddenly she thought of Tom Adams, and a fierce anger took possession of her, reviving her spirits, bringing her back to life. She would not give up! She would fight to the bitter end; she’d make him pay—and pay heavily—for his diabolical cruelty!
She moved along the seat to the far end of the car and peered through the tiny window. The road over which they were passing was narrow and rough; the country unfamiliar. It was not a main highway, Mary Louise instantly concluded, and she wondered in which direction it lay from Shady Nook. She wished now that she had watched it from the beginning. She did not even know whether they had crossed the river or not.
“Still, I suppose that doesn’t really matter,” she thought. “Because, if I can manage to get away at all, I can easily find my family. They’ll be hunting for me.” Tears of distress came to her eyes as she pictured her mother’s anguish. And her father was so far away!
“Why did I ever try to be a detective?” she groaned. “The punishment is too horrible. Mother and Daddy would rather lose their cottage and have the whole settlement at Shady Nook burned than have me endure torture like this!”
On and on they went through the lonely, unpopulated country. Time seemed to stand still; it was as if the afternoon were to last forever. Yet when Mary Louise glanced at her wristwatch she saw that it was not yet five o’clock!
They crossed over a little stream, and the car turned at an angle and climbed a hill. Up, up they went, until they reached a narrow road at the summit. Looking down into the valley below Mary Louise could see a stream—not as wide as the river—winding its peaceful way in the summer sunshine. It was a beautiful spot—if you could enjoy beauty. But it meant nothing at all to the unhappy girl.
“That looks like a main road across the valley on the opposite side of the stream,” she thought. “If I can escape, I’ll make for that. Thank goodness I know how to swim!”
She wished that she had thought to glance at her watch when the car started, so that she could roughly judge the distance from Shady Nook by the time it took to cover it. But she had been so miserable that she could not tell whether she had been riding twenty minutes or a couple of hours.
At last, however, the car came to a stop at a high iron gate which reminded Mary Louise of a penitentiary. So this was the way they guarded feeble-minded people!
One of the men got down from his seat, took a key from his pocket to unlock the gate, and swung the heavy iron doors open. When the car had gone through he locked them securely behind him.