"Don't you suppose if everyone knew that Rosanna was lost that they would all help to look for her?" asked Helen.
"It will all come out in to-morrow morning's paper," answered Mr. Culver. "They were afraid of scaring the people who are holding her, if someone is holding her. The police hoped to find her before the kidnapers were scared into carrying her a long ways off, or hiding her perhaps in some of the caves around here. You see, Helen, with a family as rich as the Hortons are, a child is sometimes held for what they call ransom; that is, an immense sum of money which the parents are glad to pay rather than have the child killed."
Mary and Gwenny were greatly shocked at the news, and wanted to hear all about it over and over. Mr. Culver went on an errand and Helen waited there with the two girls.
"Are they sure she wasn't hurt when she was trying to go somewhere?" asked Mary.
"Mary saw a little girl run over by an automobile last night," said Gwenny.
"She wasn't really run over," corrected Mary, "but pretty near."
"You don't think it was Rosanna?" cried Helen eagerly.
"Oh, no, it wasn't Rosanna," said Mary. "Rosanna never had on a dress like that; it was just the kind of a dress I would wear and, besides, her hair was cut short. And she wasn't pretty like Rosanna."
"Did you see her close up?" asked Helen curiously.
"Not very," confessed Mary. "She was all covered with dust where the automobile had rolled her into the gutter, and her head was cut, and she was unconscious: but she didn't look like Rosanna any more than I do. I was just wondering if they had been to the hospitals."