CHAPTER XVI
NOTHING OR SOMETHING?
Meanwhile, down on the sands, three anxious-eyed girls were holding counsel with an equally disturbed matron.
“When did you see Patsy last?” Miss Martha was inquiring in lively alarm.
“She was lying in the sand when I started to swim out to Mab and Nellie,” replied Bee. “When I got to them, Mab began splashing water on me and we had a busy time for a few minutes just teasing each other. Then I looked toward the beach. I was going to call out to Patsy to come on in, but she wasn’t there. I supposed, of course, she’d gone up to the bath house to take off her bathing suit and dress again. She had said she was tired.”
“How long ago was that?” Miss Martha asked huskily.
“An hour, I’m afraid; perhaps longer,” faltered Bee. “We’ve looked all along the beach and called to her. We looked in the bath house first before we told you, Miss Martha. We hated to frighten you. We kept expecting she’d come back. We thought maybe she was hiding from us just for fun and would pounce out on us all of a sudden.”
“You should have told me at once, Beatrice.”
Worry over her niece’s strange disappearance lent undue sternness to Miss Carroll’s voice.
“I—I—am—sorry.”