“Well, I have always thought you could judge anyone’s character and background by a letter. There must be something wrong. This girl—” pointing to the sketch, “is positively shocking! At least she would be around here.”
“I remember now something Sidney said—when she was begging us to let her go away. ‘I want to be different! I want to go somewhere where I won’t be Joseph Romley’s daughter. I want adventure and to do exciting things—’ Those were her very words! I didn’t take them seriously then, but, oh, Aunt Edith, perhaps she meant them more than we guessed!” Poor Trude rose quickly to her feet. “Aunt Edith, I simply must go to Provincetown at once. May I ask Pepper to find out about trains? You’ll—you’ll understand, won’t you? I can’t be happy one minute until I see the child. I feel that it’s all my fault.”
Mrs. White was all concern. She summoned Pepper and instructed him to find out the first train; she sent her maid to Trude’s room to pack her clothes. And last she wrote a generous check.
“You may need it, my dear. It is nothing. Don’t thank me. I wish I could do more. Somehow your shoulders seem too young to carry so much responsibility!”
So on the selfsame day that Sidney and the others set out upon their adventure Trude was journeying to Cape Cod. She missed connections at Boston and hired an automobile to take her to Provincetown, in her heart thanking Mrs. White for the check that made this possible. Two blow-outs delayed her journey so that it was midnight when she reached her destination. She could scarcely hunt out the Greens and Sidney at that hour. She took a room at the hotel for the night and sat for a while at its window straining her eyes out into the darkness. The howling of the wind intensified her apprehension; somewhere out in that strange blackness that enwrapped her was her little sister. Perhaps Sidney needed her that very moment!
Finally she crept into bed and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the running steps that passed under her window or the muffled voices of excited men.
CHAPTER XXI
“WHAT THE NIGHT HELD”
“Oh—h, take me back to the cabin!” moaned Pola.
“I guess we might as well,” muttered Mart. Their matches had been long since exhausted; they had been of little avail for the one ship’s light on the boat was without oil.
One on each side of her, Mart and Sidney helped Pola down into the cabin. The boat was rolling heavily now in the rough sea, each lift and drop sending terror to the three young hearts. In the blackness of the night the waves looked mountain high. Even Mart was glad to shut them from view.