Two hours later, hours which had been ages long to Helen as she sat beside the bed with the doctor, Margaret opened her eyes.
“Don’t talk, Marg,” begged Helen. “Everything is all right. You’re in a bedroom at the Linders and your father is here with you.”
Margaret nodded slightly and closed her eyes. It was another hour before she moved again and when she did Mother Linder was at hand with a steaming bowl of chicken broth. The nourishing food plus the hour of calm sleep had partially restored Margaret’s strength and when she had finished the broth she sat up in bed.
“I’ve been such a little fool,” she said, but her father patted her hand.
“Don’t apologize for what’s happened,” he said. “We’re just supremely happy to have you here,” his voice so low that only Margaret and Helen heard him.
“I thought it would be a good joke to disappear when Miss Carver started telling the ghost story,” explained Margaret. “I got the boat out into the lake without anyone seeing me and let it drift several hundred feet. When I tried to put the oars in the locks I stumbled, dropped them overboard and that’s the last I knew, except that for hours I was falling, falling, falling, and always there was the noise of the waves.”
Margaret slipped back into a deep, restful sleep when she had finished her story. Helen, worn by the hours of tension, slid out of her chair and onto the floor, and when Doctor Stevens picked her up she was sound asleep.
CHAPTER X
Behind the Footlights
By the first of the following week the near tragedy of the picnic seemed only a terrible nightmare to Helen and Margaret and they devoted all of their extra time to helping Tom get out the next edition of the Herald.
Monday morning’s mail brought a long letter from Helen’s father, a letter in which he praised them warmly for their first edition of the Herald. He added that he had recovered from the fatigue of his long trip into the southwest and was feeling much stronger and a great deal more cheerful. The newsy letter brightened the whole atmosphere of the Blair home and for the first time since their father had left, Tom and Helen saw their mother like her old self, smiling, happy and humming little tunes as she worked about the house.