"Tell me about it," I urged. "You used to be able to lean upon me once, Conetta, dear."
"It's just the—the loneliness, Dick," she faltered, squeezing the tears back. "We've all been dropping the masks and showing what we really are; but there is one mask that we never drop—any of us. We laugh and joke, and tell one another that to-morrow, or the next day at the very farthest, will see the end of this jolly picnic on Pirates' Hope. But really, in the bottom of our hearts, we know that it may never end—only with our lives. Isn't that so?"
I did not dare tell her the bald truth; that it might, indeed, come to a life-and-death struggle with starvation before our slender chance of rescue should materialize.
"I don't allow myself to think of that," I said quickly—and it was a lie out of the whole cloth. "And you mustn't let your small anchor drag, either, Connie, girl."
"I know; but I can't help hearing—and seeing. This morning early, before most of them were up, I saw Billy and Jack Grey trying to make some fishing lines and hooks; they were jollying each other about the fun they were going to have whipping the lagoon for a change of diet for us. And yesterday I happened to overhear the professor telling Bonteck that he had made a careful search of the island for the edible roots that grow wild in the tropics, and hadn't been able to find any. Naturally, I knew at once what these things meant. The provisions are running low."
I nodded. It didn't seem worth while to try to lie to her.
"How far has it spread?" I asked. "Mrs. Van Tromp has been trying to keep the scarcity in the background. Does any one else know?"
"I can't say. But I do know that Mrs. Van Tromp is anxious to hide it from her girls—and from Madeleine."
"Why from Madeleine in particular?"
Again Conetta let her honest eyes look fairly into mine.