In wild consternation, without again switching on her torch, she sprang away down the narrow passageway. Nor did she draw an easy breath until she was in her punt and half way across the bay.
Then as she dropped the oars for a second she drank in three long breaths of air to at last release a long drawn “Whew!”
She had not been in the big summer cottage on the hill five minutes, her brain pulsating from a desire to tell someone of her marvelous discovery, when the rich lady of the house told her of a yachting party to start early next morning.
“We will be gone three or four days,” she was told. “Pack your bag well, and don’t forget your bathing suit.”
“Three days! Oh—er—” She came very near letting the cat out of the bag right there, but caught herself just in time.
“Why! Don’t you want to go?” Her benefactress stared at her in astonishment. “It will be a most marvelous trip, all the way to Booth Bay and perhaps Monhegan, and on Sir Thomas Wright’s eighty-foot yacht. You never saw such a boat, Betty. Never!”
“Yes, yes, I’d love to go.” Betty’s tone was quite cheerful and sincere now. She had caught that magic name Monhegan.
“Ruth and Pearl are up there,” she told herself. “It’s a small island. I am sure to see them. I’ll tell Ruth. It’s her secret. Then, when we come back—” She closed her eyes and saw again those piles and piles of shimmering silken dresses.
“I’d like to try them on, every one,” she told herself with a little gurgle of delight that set the others in the room staring at her.
But Ruth and Pearl, as you already know, were on their way home.