After her friend had gone to her room, Madge sat out on deck and tried to read. Soon the magazine fell to her lap and she stared thoughtfully out across the bay. At length she arose.
“I may as well put Mr. Burnett’s cabin to rights,” she decided. “I know it’s a task Enid dreads.”
She found the cabin door unlocked and entered. Everything was just as she had discovered it the morning of her arrival at Cheltham Bay. After a preliminary survey, she began at one corner of the room, straightening rugs and rearranging furniture. She picked up newspapers, books and articles which had been hurled to the floor in the desperate struggle.
In righting the objects on the desk, her attention was attracted to a scrap of paper which had fallen to the floor. Madge did not recall having noticed it there before. Thinking that it must have blown from the desk when the door was opened, she bent down and picked it up.
She gave it a casual glance and then stared in blank astonishment.
“Great jumping snakes!” she exclaimed. “Where did this come from?”
With the paper clutched tightly in her hand, she darted out the door and ran toward Enid’s cabin.
CHAPTER VIII
An Important Communication
Madge flung open the cabin door and burst in upon Enid who was lying upon the bed, though fully awake.
“Look at this!” she cried. “I found it in your father’s cabin just now.”