“How in the world did Cathalina and Hilary get there?” continued Virgie, thinking aloud. “They were at the shore, and would go right in after bathing.”
“Gracious, Virgie—I don’t know. All I know is what the girls said just now. I don’t see why Mickey should be in such a hurry and be so cross if it were too late to do anything.”
The two girls ran down the back stairs to the door where Betty had seen Donald’s mirrored countenance on that famous Hallowe’en, and crossed the campus a short distance to the “pest house,” or hospital annex. A group of girls had just left, walking away in an opposite direction, but as Olivia and Virginia neared the door, it opened and Hilary came out, wrapped in a big grey blanket. She was bound for the same door of Greycliff Hall from which Olivia and Virginia had come, and had on some big felt slippers and a few garments furnished by the nurse, in place of her wet sandals and bathing suit. She smiled rather wanly at the excited girls, and Virginia asked at once, “Is it true that Isabel was drowned?”
“No, indeed! But she came pretty near it.”
“How did it happen? Tell us about it!”
“Wait till I get upstairs, if you don’t mind. I feel funny, too, from some medicine they gave me, but Miss Randolph said I could go to bed in the suite. She said that she was glad Cathalina and I broke the rules for once.”
“What rules?—Oh, well, I won’t ask any more questions till you get to bed. Did you rescue Isabel?”
Olivia began to laugh. “Aren’t you perfectly killing, Virginia Hope! Just said you wouldn’t ask questions and ask her another in the same breath! Come on, Hilary, I’ll help you upstairs.” But Hilary, gathering her blanket around her, was climbing the back stairs without any assistance, laughing, too, at Virginia.
“I don’t blame you, Virgie. I wouldn’t let you come with me if there were any chance of your seeing Isabel. She is feeling pretty sick right now, and a doctor is going to come and look her over. They put Cathalina to bed, too. She was the one who rescued Isabel. She would have been gone if it hadn’t been for Cathalina. She was standing on the edge of the bank and dived to get her.” Hilary went up a few more steps and then remembered another of Virginia’s questions. “Oh, yes, about breaking rules. It was so warm, you know, that we took our time about getting up to the Hall, and decided we’d go through the wood to get to the side door. Then we saw Isabel, and I threw off my cloak and sat in the sun on that tree Mickey cut down—and, of course, it was breaking rules to wait, but we did not think of it then. As I told Miss Randolph, we were ‘just stopping a minute’ on the way. We didn’t see Mickey at all, but he was in the boathouse and started right after us. I was in a canoe, you know, by that time.”
“No, we didn’t know. I suppose when Cathalina dived, you ran for a boat.”