Florence was sitting bolt upright in bed. She pointed her finger at her roommate by way of emphasis.

But, tired and perplexed as she was, Lucile never flinched.

"Your logic is all right save for two things," she smiled wearily.

"What two?"

"The character of the old man and the character of the child. They could not do the thing you suggest. No, not for far greater reward. Not in a thousand years." She beat the bed with her hands. "There must be some other explanation. There must. There must!"

For a moment there was silence in the room. Lucile removed her street garments, put on her dream robe, then crept into bed.

"Oh," she sighed, "I forgot to tell you what that extraordinary child asked me to do."

"What?"

"She said she had an errand to do for the old Frenchman; that it would take her a long way from home and she was afraid to go alone. She asked me if I would go with her."

"What did you tell her?"

"I--I told her that both my roommate and I would go."

"You did!"

"Why, yes."

"Well," said Florence, after a moment's thought, "I'll go, but if it's another frightful robbery, if she's going to break in somewhere and carry away some book worth thousands of dollars, I'm not in on it. I--I'll drag her to the nearest police station and our fine little mystery will end right there."

"Oh, I don't think it can be anything like that," said Lucile sleepily.

"Anyway, we can only wait and see."

With that she turned her right cheek over on the pillow and was instantly fast asleep.

CHAPTER XV A STRANGE JOURNEY

The hours of the following day dragged as if on leaden wings. With nerves worn to single strands, Lucile was now literally living on excitement.

The fact that she was to go with the mystery child on a night's trip which held promise of excitement and possible adventure in it, went far toward keeping her eyes open and on their task, but for all this, the hours dragged.

At the library she was startled to note the worn and haggard look on Harry Brock's face. She wanted to ask him the cause of it and to offer sympathy, but he appeared to actually avoid her. Whenever she found some excuse to move in his direction, he at once found one for moving away to another corner of the library.

"Whatever can be the matter with him?" she asked herself. "I wonder if I could have offended him in any way. I should hate to lose his friendship."

Night came at last and with it the elevated station and Tyler street.

With her usual promptness, the child led them to a surface car. They rode across the city. From the car they hurried to an inter-urban depot of a steam line.

"So it's to be out of the city," Florence whispered to Lucile. "I hadn't counted on that. It may be more than we bargained for."

"I hope not," shivered Lucile. "I've been all warmed up over this trip the whole day through and now when we are actually on the way I feel cold as a clam and sort of creepy all over. Do--do you suppose it will be anything very dreadful?"

"Why, no!" laughed Florence. "Far as feelings go mine have been just the opposite to yours. I didn't want to go and felt that way all day, but now it would take all the conductors in the service to put me off the train."

With all the seriousness of a grown-up, the child purchased tickets for them all, and now gave them to the conductor without so much as suggesting their destination to the girls.

"I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way," whispered Florence with a smile.

"Seems strange, doesn't it?" said Lucile.

"Sh," warned Florence.

The child had turned a smiling face toward them.

"I think it's awfully good of you to come," she beamed. "It's a long way and I'm afraid we'll be late getting home, but you won't have to do anything, not really, just go along with me. It's a dreadfully lonesome place. There's a long road you have to go over and the road crosses a river and there is woods on both sides of the river. Woods are awful sort of spooky at night, don't you think so?"

Florence smiled and nodded. Lucile shivered.

"I don't mind the city," the child went on, "not any of it. There are always people everywhere and things can't be spooky there, but right out on the roads and in the woods and on beaches where the water goes wash-wash-wash at night, I don't like that, do you?"

"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 rea.s.suring. 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 pa.s.sed 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.

"Trees _are_ spooky at night," Lucile whispered as she gripped her companion's arm a little more tightly.

"Where are we?" Florence whispered.

"I couldn't guess."