Nyoda handed the woman a pencil through the iron scroll-work. She wrote something on the bottom of the paper and handed it back to Nyoda. Nyoda took the piece of paper and read:
"There is no mistake about your being here."
As she stood in open-mouthed astonishment the elevator sank from view.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ESCAPE.
"No mistake about our being here!" gasped Nyoda. Her knees failed her and she sank weakly to the floor. "What can that mean? Are we kidnapped? Do you suppose we are being held for ransom?"
"It's too horrible," said Gladys, passing her hand over her eyes. "Such things happen in novels, but not in real life."
"And yet," said Nyoda musingly, "if you read the newspapers, you see that stranger things happen in reality than in fiction."
"If we're being held for ransom," said Gladys, "then mother and father will find out where I am." She was more troubled about the worry her disappearance would cause her parents than about any evil which might befall herself.
They rushed to the window to see if any boat was passing which they could signal. Not a sign of anything. Whoever had constructed this tower had considered a great many things. Built in the middle of an extensive estate and hidden on three sides by tall trees, it was not visible from the road at all. The barred window in the tower could only be seen from the lake side, so that if some one should wander through the grounds the appearance of the house itself would excite no suspicion. At some distance on each side of the tower a long rocky pier extended far out into the water. It was not a landing pier, for the rocks were piled unevenly on each other. These rocks changed the current of the water and made boating in the vicinity dangerous, so that launches and sailboats gave the place a wide berth. Then, on the outside of the barred window, clearing it by about two feet, there was an ornamental wooden trellis on which vines grew, which effectually screened the barred window from detection on the lake side.