Marie-Jeanne drew them mysteriously into the curve of the bridge.
“No,” she said. “You’re lucky not to have to keep things. I hate secrets. I should like to live in a house with lots of windows and keep the blinds drawn up all the time so that any one who wanted to could look in. But I have to creep about and go out back doors and around dark streets. I am always frightened and uneasy; and as for mother, she keeps the blinds down all day and never sticks her nose outside.”
“But what is it, Marie-Jeanne?” cried Billie. “Is it really something too dreadful to tell?”
“That’s just it,” exclaimed the poor girl miserably, “I don’t know what it is. I only know we are hiding and there is a secret. If ever I find out what it is,” she cried fiercely, “I shall tell it and have it over with.”
“Is Miss Felicia Rivers in the secret?” asked Nancy.
“I don’t know. But she allows her house to be used for the meetings.”
“Meetings?”
“Yes. They meet there. Queer-looking men who speak foreign languages.”
“And what has your mother to do with it?”
“I can’t tell. She’s in it, though. But we’re going away next month. We are going to France. Mother has promised to do something for them—and after that, we’ll go——”