Had anything happened, they wondered. They were frightened and uneasy. The house seemed to be filled with a mysterious silence.
Their host did not come back to them that afternoon, but retiring to their rooms they put on their prettiest frocks to do honor to his dinner, where he joined them at seven o’clock, looking a little pale and worried, they thought.
CHAPTER V.—AN INCIDENT OF THE ROAD.
“Sevenoaks” was the name of Mr. Moore’s great farm, which covered acres and acres of fertile plain; called so because of seven great oak trees which shaded the circular drive girdling the front lawn. They were fine old trees, and much care had been taken to preserve them in order to preserve the significance of the name.
“If I were Evelyn,” Nancy was thinking, as she stood next morning on the piazza scanning the storm-washed landscape now fast drying under the heat of the sun, “I should think it would be rather nice to be mistress of this beautiful place.”
But Evelyn’s name had not been mentioned again, and the name of the aviator also had never been introduced. The girls had waited, hoping there might be some explanation, but there was none, and they did not care to be accused of another act of curiosity.
What he could have been doing in that house, where he came from out of the storm and whither he went, they could not even guess. It was like a dream, a sudden vision flashed before them in the lightning and then gone.
They had been driven over the farm that morning by the master himself; had seen, with the other fine horses, Pocohontas pawing the ground with her small forefoot, while a groom rubbed her smooth, satin coat with a piece of chamois. And now the Comet stood under the center tree of the seven oaks, waiting to carry them on their journey.
One Japanese servant was strapping on the suit cases in the back while the other was storing a hamper of lunch and a box of provisions in the motor.
While Billie was waiting for the others to settle themselves in the motor, Daniel Moore handed her a letter.