Page:Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car.djvu/160

150 The remaining lantern from the auto—one being with Mollie—was flashed into the apartment. It took but a glance to show that it was empty.

"I thought it was this one," said Betty, trying to keep her voice from trembling, as she moved to the door she had insisted was the right one.

She tried half a dozen times. The door was locked.

"She's in—there!" gasped Grace.

Again Betty called aloud, repeating Mollie's name over and over again, but there was no answer.

"Oh—oh, what can have happened?" faltered Amy. "Poor Mollie!"

"At least we know that it was perfectly natural what happened—however mean and unjust it was," declared Betty. "We have to do with natural forces, and"

Through the old house there once more sounded that mournful groan, chilling the very blood of the girls, and causing them to cling together. Several times were the groans repeated, and then there shone, as if from a distance, a bluish light, and there came the clank of metal.

"Oh—oh!" cried Grace.