"I—I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's no question but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn't only be in the way."
"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost a certainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps are found already, and in that case you would have all your trip for nothing. I don't like to advise—"
"Oh, please do," Mollie begged, adding with a pathetic little smile: "I feel so awfully lonesome, trying to decide everything all by myself."
"You poor little girl," said the woman tenderly, then fearing lest sympathy would only make the girl feel worse, added hurriedly: "In that case I should most strongly advise that you wait a day or two at least and give things a chance to straighten out. At the end of that time, if they haven't been found and you still think you ought to go, we'll pack up everything and go along with you, of course."
"That's what I'll do then," agreed Mollie, relieved to have the question settled for her. "And now," she added, making for the door once more, "I'm going to get into my street things and wiz down to that station in record time. Who wants to come with me?"
It seemed everybody did, and in a very short time the girls had changed from their bathing suits to their street clothes and were ready for the dash to the station, which was about two miles from their house.
They all climbed into Mollie's car, and the big machine started slowly backward down the steep incline.
"Better hold on," Mollie warned them. "I've never done quite so steep a hill as this backward, and the old boy may balk. Take your time, old man," addressing the car, as it showed a tendency to pick up speed too rapidly. "Of course we're in a hurry, but we don't want to land on our ears. That's the way—gently now. All right—we're off!" as they reached the foot of the hill in safety and swung around into the road. "Now let's see how long it will take you to reach that station."
As a matter of fact, it took scarcely any time at all, for the demon of speed seemed to have taken possession of Mollie, and she drove so recklessly that even the girls, who were used to her daring, were startled.
Yet something about the young driver's straight little back and tightly compressed lips kept them from protesting.