“Sometimes I do,” said Florence. “I think I’m going to like it a lot to-night.”
“Oh, are you?” exclaimed the child. “Then I’m glad, because it was awfully nice of you to come.”
“A long road, woods and a river,” Florence repeated in Lucile’s ear. “Wherever can we be going? I supposed we would get off at one of the near-in suburbs.”
“Evidently,” said Lucile, forcing a smile, “we are in for a night of it. I’m going to catch forty winks. Call me when we get to the road that crosses the river in the woods.” She bent her head down upon one hand and was soon fast asleep.
She was awakened by a shake from Florence. “We’re here. Come on, get off.”
What they saw on alighting was not reassuring. A small red depot, a narrow, irregular platform, a square of light through which they saw a young man with a green shade over his eyes bending before a table filled with telegraph instruments; this was all they saw. Beyond these, like the entrance to some huge, magical cave, the darkness loomed at them.
The child appeared to know the way, even in the dark, for she pulled at Florence’s sleeve as she whispered:
“This way please. Keep close to me.”
There was not the least danger of the girls’ failing to keep close, for, once they had passed beyond sight of that friendly square of light and the green-shaded figure, they were hopelessly lost.
True, the darkness shaded off a trifle as their eyes became more accustomed to it; they could tell that they were going down a badly kept, sandy road; they could see the dim outline of trees on either side; but that was all. The trees seemed a wall which shut them in on either side.