“I don’t know the Sunday schedule very well. I think they stop here only for picnic parties; but I shall tie my handkerchief to the signal pole; maybe she’ll see it out there if she has a regular run to town.”
“There’ll be the Sunday picnics! But we don’t want—we must not be seen by—by anybody here.”
The tone of desperation told him that she had waked to the fact that had troubled him ever since he knew they were left,—what might be said when their plight became known.
“It’s lucky to-morrow’s Sunday; it needn’t be known at school,” he comforted.
“How can it be helped?”
“If we can’t get a steamer in the early morning you can hide in the brush by the wharf till the boat discharges her passengers; and when they are climbing the hill, you step into the path and head for the steamer. No one will know that you are not one of them, and the steamer people will think you came only for the boat ride, or—oh, they won’t notice you any way.”
“But the picnickers, Billy; they’ll know I don’t belong—”
“Sure they won’t. At those promiscuous public picnics half are strangers to the rest.”
“But you, Billy? When—?”
“Don’t worry about this kid. If we’re not seen together, no one will be able to say certainly that we were here. You just ’phone my mother that I’m safe—” He stopped suddenly, his face pale with another thought which he did not voice,—her people might be seeking her, telephoning to the pupils, the police. That would mean certain disclosure of the whole situation. “Your mother will be having a bad time, I’m afraid,” he said calmly.