day after found them again on watch, though what they expected to see they couldn't have told. It was plain that, in spite of appearances, Cecily Marlowe's friendly feeling toward them was undiminished. The charming backward smile had indicated that unmistakably.[Pg 55] But how to make it fit in with her refusal to signal and her forbidding conduct they could not understand, and the mystery kept them in a constant ferment of surmise.

[Pg 55]

But even as they sat discussing it next morning, their fancy-work lying unheeded in their laps, they looked out suddenly with a simultaneous gasp of astonishment and delight. There was a tiny white handkerchief attached to the shutter in the upper window and fluttering in the breeze!

"It's the signal—our signal!" cried Marcia. "Now what shall we do?—show that we've seen it by waving something? Here's my red silk scarf."

"No," decided Janet. "Perhaps she'd rather not have us do anything that might attract attention. Let's go right down to the street, as we said we would, and see if she's there."

They lost not a moment's time in reaching their front steps. But there was no sign of Cecily till they had come abreast of the Benedict[Pg 56] gate. This they discovered ajar, and two blue eyes peeping out of a narrow crack. As they came in sight, there was a smothered exclamation, "Oh! I'm so glad!" The gate opened wider, and Cecily stood before them.

[Pg 56]

"You are so good!" she began at once, in a low voice, stretching out both hands to them. "I was afraid you—you wouldn't come. I left the signal there almost all day yesterday—"

"We were away!" cried Marcia, promptly. "I'm so sorry. We went—"

"Oh, then—oh, it's all right!" breathed Cecily, in relief. "I was sure you were angry at—at the way—I acted."

It was on the tip of Marcia's tongue to demand why she had acted so, but she refrained. And Cecily hurried on:

"I—I just had to signal for you. I—we are in great trouble—and I don't know what to do."

"Oh, what is it?" cried both girls together.

"Miss—Miss Benedict is very ill," she continued hesitatingly. "She—she fell and hurt[Pg 57] her ankle the other day, and—it's been getting worse ever since. 

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