“Gone?” Garth's eyes sought the landing-stage, then swept the vista of grey-water ahead of them.
“Damn!” he ejaculated forcibly. “She's got adrift!”
A brown speck, bobbing maddeningly up and down in the distance and momentarily drifting further and further out to sea on the ebbing tide, was all that could be seen of the Betsy Anne.
An involuntary chuckle broke from Sara.
“Marooned!” she exclaimed. “How amusing!”
“Amusing?” Trent looked at her with a concerned expression. “It might be, if it were eleven o'clock in the morning. But it's the wrong end of the day. It will be dark before long.” He paused, then asked swiftly: “Does any one at Sunnyside know where you are this afternoon?”
“No. The doctor and Molly were both out to lunch—and you know we only planned this trip this morning. I haven't seen them since. Why do you ask?”
“Because, if they know, they'd send over in search of us if we didn't turn up in the course of the next hour or so. But if they don't know where you are, we stand an excellent chance of spending the night here.”
The gravity of what had first struck her as merely an amusing contretemps suddenly presented itself to Sara.
“Oh!—!” She drew her breath in sharply. “What—what on earth shall we do?”