"Cora Kimball!"

Ed Foster stood up every inch of his height. He was always tall, but now, facing the girl whose name he had so vehemently spoken, he seemed a veritable giant. Cora wanted to be firm; she meant exactly what she said when she declared she would abandon the tour of the motor girls, and go back to Chelton to help Cecilia Thayer out of her difficulty.

But, after all, Cora was only a girl, and Ed was a great, strong man—he ought to know.

"If you cannot trust me, Cora, and allow me to help Clip, I really think you are not doing justice to Jack's friend."

Cora laughed a little. Ed put things so nicely. He never presumed upon her own intimacy—it was always just "Jack's friend."

"Besides," he pressed, seeing, in, Cora's eyes, his advantage, "I feel I can do more alone. I have got to take Hazel back to her brother, then I promise you I shall not rest until I have found Clip, and made sure of her exact situation."

"Oh, I know, Ed, you will do everything possible. But it seems like treason for me to go on a pleasure trip and leave two very dear friends in such trouble. Even Jack may be implicated."

Ed turned away to hide his own tell-tale face. He knew perfectly well that Jack was implicated, knew that Rob Roland had deliberately accused him of taking Cecilia Thayer out to the Salvey cottage for the purpose of gaining possession of the promise book. For this very reason Ed wanted Cora to go on—to escape, if possible, the anxiety she must experience if she should have to know the real story.

"Well," sighed Cora, "it is getting late. I suppose it will be best,
Ed, as you say. Take Hazel back, and find Clip. Have her 'phone me at
Breakwater, tomorrow."

"That's the girl!" exclaimed Ed, taking both her hands in his own strong clasp. "See, the girls are looking at us. They think you have accepted me."

"I have," she answered, "accepted you, and your terms. Good luck, Ed.
It is so nice for Jack to have such a good friend."

Hazel was soon tucked in the little runabout, the detective going on in another car that was sent out to him in answer to his call over the telephone.

"Is your premonition all fulfilled, Cora?" asked Daisy, her voice far from merry. "I suppose you were 'premonited' that Hazel should go off like that."

"If we keep on losing," said Gertrude, "we will soon all fit in the
Whirlwind."

Cora stood gazing after the runabout—Jack's car. Hazel's eyes had burned their look upon Cora's face—those deep, violet eyes always seem like live volcanoes, thought Cora.

And Ed—his eyes had been searching, his look—well, it was convincing, that is all Cora would admit even to her own heart.

She turned finally to those on the porch.

"Well," exclaimed Belle, the sentimental one, "who is star-gazing, now?
Cora, what did you forget in that runaway car?"

Cora smiled. She had been remiss, and she owed it to the girls to see that their trip was a success. She would atone now.

"Tillie," she said suddenly, "couldn't you and Adele shut up shop for a week and come with us? You have been working hard all summer, and you have made up the required pennies. Now, don't you think it would be perfectly splendid to take the run with us?"

Every one instantly agreed that this would be the very thing, and in spite of the hesitation of Adele and Tillie, who argued that it might not be agreeable to bring strangers into the homes where others had been expected, it was finally settled that the party should wait until the next morning, when the tea-house girls would be ready to start off with them.

Nor were the arrangements without a certain happy possibility—there were two other girls waiting to take up that same little Grotto—to earn college money, as had Tillie and Adele.

"Rena and Margaret will be here first thing in the morning," announced Adele, after her telephone talk with Rena, "and they are perfectly delighted. Oh, isn't it just splendid!"

Then Cora had messages to send. She called up Jack, but only got the maid in answer. She called up Walter, and he also was out. Finally she called up Ed. She waited until she felt he would be at his dinner quarters, and she was not disappointed in getting his own voice in reply.

He told her that everything was all right—that Clip was with little
Wren, who had been very ill since the loss of her book, and that Paul
Hastings was no worse. This last Cora considered evasive, but had to
be content, for Ed would give no more definite information.

Such demands as were made upon that little tea-house telephone that evening! Every one of the girls called up her own home, besides calling up many relatives at the other end of the line, those with whom the tourists expected to visit during the trip.

The Grotto was well situated for business, being about half way between two country seats, and the same distance between two large cities.

"We will close exactly at sundown to-night," said Adele, when a lady from Bentley, who stopped every evening for a cup of tea on her way from the village, had been served.

"Do let me keep shop for a while," begged Cora. "I would just love to be in real business. Mother declares I have a bent for trade. Let me try, Tillie, while you and Adele go over to the cottage and get your things together."

Thus it was that one hour later Cora Kimball was left the sole possessor of the Grotto; every other motor girl managed to either go for a walk, or go with some one who wanted to take a walk, but Cora was glad—she felt the need of rest which only solitude can give.

She sat on the porch; the gentle evening breeze made incense through the honeysuckle. It was delightfully resting; she could hear the voices of the girls in the meadow, after cowslips, buttercups, daisies and clover. They would fetch back a huge bunch, Cora knew, and they would discard them at the steps of the Grotto, as most girls do—run wild for wild flowers, then toss them away when the run is over.

"I hardly think I shall have any business," thought Cora, "although I would just love to wait on somebody."

The rumble of an approaching automobile caught her ear.

"There!" she thought; "the driver of that car may want a sip of Russian tea—I am glad it is not Turkish—that the girls serve here."

The car was almost up to the sycamore tree, just at the side of the
Grotto.

Yes, the driver was stopping.

Cora rocked nervously in the wicker chair.

Who would it be? The girls should not have gone so far away—

A young man alighted from the runabout. He stepped briskly up to the porch.

It was Rob Roland.

"Well!" he exclaimed, plainly as surprised to see Cora as she was to see him. "If this isn't luck! Miss Kimball!"

Quick and keen as was his glance, making sure that Cora was alone, her own sharp wits were able to follow his.

"Yes," she replied indifferently, "the girls have closed up the tea-room, and are just out in the meadow. I felt more like sitting here."

He drew up a chair and sat down uninvited. Cora never did like Rob
Roland, now she disliked him.

"You are the very person I am most anxious to talk to," he began, "and this is an excellent opportunity."

"About what, pray?" asked Cora. "I must go with the girls very soon."

"Oh, no, you must not," he replied, and, handsome though he was, there was that in his manner that deepened the very lines nature had done her best with, and his eyes were merely smoldering depths.

Cora felt she should not betray the least nervousness, for, though Rob Roland was known to be a gentleman, he might take advantage of her helplessness to gain from her some information. Ed had warned her to beware of him.

"Of course you know all about Cissy Thayer," he began. Cora resented his insolence, but dared not show it. "You know how she has been getting around my little cousin, the cripple."

Cora glared at him. She felt that his cowardly attack was simply a display of weakness, and she knew a coward is easily overcome. She deliberately drew her chair closer to him.

"Rob Roland," she said calmly, "my friend, Miss Thayer, is not only a lady, but she is also a student of human ills. She has been interested in little Wren that she might be cured. It appears that some of her relatives consider her incurable."

"Cured!" he sneered. "That misfit made right! Why, she has only a few months to live. Your friend is very foolish. She should put her energy on something worth while. And she should be careful how she handles their property. That scrapbook, for instance."

"How dare you, Rob Roland!" exclaimed Cora. "Miss Thayer says the child has been ill-treated through alleged treatment, and it appears the man who has been treating her was paid by your father."

"Oh, my!" The fellow sank deeper into his linen coat. "I had no idea of your dramatic powers, Miss Kimball. I beg a thousand pardons. I never dreamed that the Thayer girl was so close to you. In fact, I rather thought you merely took her up out of charity. Every one in Chelton knows that the Thayers are just poor working-people."

That was too much for Cora. She stepped to the door of the tea-room with dismissal in her manner. He knew she intended him to leave at once.

"But what I want to know," he said, deliberately following her, "is just who this Thayer girl is. It is important that we should know, to go on with the—"

"We!" interrupted Cora. "Pray, who are 'we'?"

"Why, my father's firm, the lawyers, you know," he stammered. "Some day, Miss Kimball, I expect to represent the firm of Roland, Reed & Company."

Cora turned and looked at him. It was on that very spot that she had turned to Ed—Ed was so like this young man, the same dark, handsome youth, and just about his age.

But Ed was, after all, so different—so very different.

Cora was gaining time as she strove to hold him by her magnetic glance.
Any youth would accept it; he did not despise it.

"Mr. Roland," she said, in her own inimitable velvet tones, "you are making a very great mistake. If you really believe that Cecilia Thayer had anything to do with the loss of that child's book, you are wrong; if you think she had any other than humane motives in visiting the child, you are wrong again. Cecilia Thayer—"

"Oh, now come, Cora," he interrupted. "You don't mind me calling you Cora? I know the whole scheme. Your brother Jack is—well, he is quite clever, but not clever enough to cover up his tracks." He grasped Cora's arm and actually dragged her to him. "Don't you know that Cissy Thayer and Jack Kimball are suspected of abduction? That Wren Salvey has been stolen-stolen, do you hear?"

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE MESSAGE

Uproarious laughter from the girls with the wild flowers aroused Cora.
Rob Roland was gone.

Had she fainted? Was that roaring in her ears just awakened nerves?

"Cora! Oh, Cora! We had the most darling time," Bess was bubbling. "You should have been along. Such a dear old farmer. He showed us the queerest tables. And he had the nicest son. Cora— What is the matter?"

"Oh," lisped Ray, "another Co-Ed message over the telephone."

"Cora, dear," exclaimed Gertrude, "we should not have left you all alone. Are you ill?"

"Cora! Cora!" gasped Adele.

"Cora, dear!" sighed Tillie.

"Oh, Cora!" moaned Belle. "What has happened?"

"Cora, darling," cried Maud, "who has frightened you?"

"Cora Kimball," called Daisy, "have you been drinking too much tea?"

"Too little," murmured Cora. "Will some of you girls leave off biting the air, and make a good cup of tea?"

There was a wild rush for the alcohol lamp; every one wanted to make the good cup of tea.

"I saw a runabout moving away as we came up," said Ray. "I hope, Cora, your caller was not obnoxious."

"Oh, just an autoist," replied Cora indifferently. "I did not take the trouble to brew tea for one solitary man." The color was coming back into her cheeks now, and with the return of animation her scattered senses attempted to seize upon the strange situation.

Jack and Clip to be arrested for abduction!

Could that fellow have known what he was saying?

If only Jack would call her up on the telephone. She had left word for him to do so, no matter how late the hour might be when he should return home.

"Now drink every sip of this," commanded Adele, as she turned on the lights and fetched Cora a steaming cup of the very best Grotto Hyson. "There is nothing for shaken nerves better than perfectly fresh tea, and, you see, we make it without soaking the leaves."

"It is delightful," said Cora, sipping the savory draught. "I must learn how to make tea this way—it is so different from the home-brewed variety."

Gertrude sat close to the reclining girl. "Is there nothing I can do,
Cora?" she asked. "No message I can send?"

"Yes," whispered Cora; "you can manage to get the girls out of here before you and I leave for the night. I want to use the telephone privately."

Gertrude understood. She had not been a roommate with Cora Kimball for two years without knowing something of her temperament. She pressed her friend's hand gently, then said loud enough for the others to hear:

"We will soon have to get our machines under cover. Tillie says her grandfather has all sorts of sheds over around his country place. In fact, he has a regular shed-farm. Cora, I am just dying to try running a motor. Would you trust me to get the Whirlwind in the shed safely?"

"Of course I would, Gertrude," and Cora jumped up from the wicker divan. "I would suggest that some one go along, though—perhaps Ray. She has had some experience, and you know the Whirlwind."

"Is not a prize-package machine," interrupted Gertrude. "All right, Cora. I will humbly take instructions. Come along, girls. It will be dark directly, and then we might have to waste time lighting the lamps."

"And grandfather's man has offered to look over every machine early in the morning," said Tillie. "He is quite expert; we will be sure that every nut and bolt is in perfect order."

This was good news to the motor girls, especially to Daisy, who had her own secret doubts about her father's best car—she was accustomed to running the substitute.

Presently all except Cora and Adele were attending to the cars. Cora was just about to call up her own house when the tinkle of the telephone bell startled her. She picked up the receiver and was not surprised to find the party inquired for was herself.

"This is Jack," came the welcome voice. "Is that you, sis?"

"Oh, yes, Jack, dear!" she replied. Adele had gone out to fetch the chairs in from the porch. "I have been almost frantic. Where are you? Where is Clip? Where is Wren?"

"Oh, easy there, now, sis," and Cora thought she had never before appreciated the value of a real brother. "I can't answer everything at once, although I can come pretty near it. First, I am here—at home. Next, Clip is here—at our home, and third, the other party—I won't mention names—is here also."

"All at our house?" exclaimed Cora.

And the answer came: "Exactly that. But you mustn't say a word to any one. You know, there has been a sort of rumpus. Do you want to speak with C.? She is here."

"Hello, Cora," came Cecilia's voice. "How are you? Not getting on with your trip very fast, I guess."

"Oh, Clip!" said Cora. "I cannot understand it—"

"You are not supposed to," replied the other. "We are all right, you are all right, and what more do you ask?"

"How is Paul?"

"Well, he did have quite a time, but is improving. Say, Cora," and the voice was subdued, "don't call us up until you hear from me. I can't explain now. But where shall I write—say in two days' time?"

"Two days!" repeated Cora. "Do you expect me to exist that long and not know—"

"I am afraid you will have to. We are being watched"—this was barely breathed—"and a break would spoil it all. Surely you can trust me."

The girls were coming back-were actually on the porch. Cora was obliged to say a few disconnected words, and then she hung up the receiver.