“What do you think, Mr. Hall?” she wearily asked.
“I judge that, like all healthy children, Ruth is a sound sleeper. What more likely than that when worn out, she has lain down on the leaves like another Babe in the Wood, and will not open her eyes until morning? Am I not right, Doctor?”
“Undoubtedly, provided she has been permitted to do as you say.”
“I do not understand you.”
“What is the use of our keeping silent, when the same fear is in all our hearts?”
“I still fail to catch your meaning.”
“Wife, and you, and I believe she has been kidnapped by those tramps.”
The mother gave a gasp and low moan. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed:
“That’s what I have feared from the first.”
“I cannot deny that the dread has been with me,” said the Scout Master, “yet I have hoped and still hope we are mistaken.”