“We certainly missed one grand ducking,” crowed Jane. “Just listen to that!”

Gathered in the living room, the foresters had good reason for self-congratulation. Not more than ten minutes had passed since their run to cover, yet in that short interval, the shower had increased to driving sheets of rain that lashed furiously against the window panes. Above the beating of the rain, the wind whistled and roared about the sturdy little cottage, as though determined to tear it from its foundations.

“I’d hate to be back in the woods now with this storm going on,” shuddered Betty. “That wind is strong enough to send the trees crashing down.”

“We are lucky to have escaped it,” said Miss Drexal. “I would advise you girls to go upstairs and change your damp clothing. Then you will run no risk of catching cold. I am going to take my own advice and do so at once.”

“I hope that horrid man that nearly ran us down gets a good wetting,” grumbled Sarah.

“He wasn’t a man. He was only a crazy boy,” jeered Jane.

“I’d like to know where he came from so suddenly,” remarked Betty. “I wonder if he lives somewhere near here.”

“He drove his car up the road just as we came out of the woods,” informed Ruth. “Didn’t any of you see him then? It was at the very minute when Jane fell down.”

“You couldn’t expect us to bother with a little thing like an automobile when our Jane had come to grief,” smiled Anne. “I never even heard it.”

“Nor I,” chorused several voices.

For reasons best known to herself, Ruth was not sorry to hear this.

“He couldn’t have gone much further than the cottage, or he wouldn’t have come back so soon,” argued Betty. “He certainly didn’t stop at the Heights, or Martha would have mentioned it when she told us about the drayman bringing our trunks.”

“I don’t see why he should stop here,” declared Jane. “We don’t know him and he doesn’t know us.”

“The Mystery of the Mad Motorist; or Why, Where and When,” supplied Frances gaily.

“Very likely he was afraid of the storm, and decided to turn back,” suggested practical Betty, bent on clearing up the mystery.

“Why bother our heads over a silly boy who hasn’t any notion of speed laws?” laughed Marian. “Let’s think of our own precious selves, and go upstairs for a grand change of costume. Blanche has certainly beaten us to it. She didn’t stop to compare notes with us.”

“That’s so. I’d forgotten about seeing her come in just ahead of us. I wonder where she had been.” Mention of Blanche had aroused Jane’s curiosity. “She must have—” Jane stopped. She had been on the point of saying that Blanche must have forgotten all about being tired.

Sarah giggled faintly. She had guessed the rest of the speech to be satirical, hence Jane’s reason for chopping it off so abruptly. Ruth cast the sharp-tongued girl an approving glance, which Jane caught and understood.

“Come, girls.” Miss Drexal moved toward the hall.

Arrived in their rooms, the hikers lost no time in changing their slightly damp clothing for simple house gowns, substituting pumps and slippers for their cumbersome high tan boots.

The Guardian found Blanche, already arrayed in a pale blue linen gown, seated before the dressing-table rearranging her auburn hair in the elaborate coiffure she always affected.

“I thought I would go for a walk,” she began hurriedly, before Miss Drexal had time to make a remark. “I had no idea it was going to storm. I was hurrying for the cottage when you and the girls came up the road. I was tired of just sitting around doing nothing,” she added, as though feeling it incumbent upon her to explain her movements.

“I am glad you went. It was fortunate you didn’t walk far,” replied Miss Drexal, smiling. She was secretly pleased to find that her languid guest had been about and stirring. Her advice to Blanche, before starting on the walk, had evidently borne fruit. At once busying herself with her own dressing, she failed to observe the curious expression of relief that lurked in Blanche’s eyes as she studied the other woman intently for an instant, then turned to the mirror.

Before Miss Drexal had completed her change of gown, Blanche rose and walked to the door. “I am going to Ruth’s room,” she announced. She was bent on getting away, lest the registrar should ask questions which she could not truthfully answer. She preferred not to commit herself to anything which might afterward involve her in a mesh of difficulties.

Admitted to Ruth’s room by Emmy, she found the three girls had begun the overhauling of their steamer trunks.............