"Well, we thought we'd just be starting along. It's—it's not late yet, you know. We'll just slip on ahead and get the cottage lighted."
"I think we'll go along now too."
"Oh, I wouldn't hurry. The fire's quite good yet."
"Lynndal is tired," she insisted. "He didn't sleep more than a couple of hours on the boat." And she gave him a very complex glance in which there was something whisperingly like an element of tenderness.
"Well," capitulated Mrs. Needham.
But Louise was only one daughter. Where was Hilda?
Where indeed? Where was she?
Anxious eyes explored the assembled company. Most of the young people had mysteriously made off, some this way and some that, but all alike into the friendly embrace of the darkness which lay so thick beyond the glow of the fire. Where was Hilda?
"I think I saw her with the lad—is it Leslie?" said Lynndal Barry.