Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/328

 "You'd better have your supper," Joan said. "I'll have mine, too, if you like. Then I'll get some ready for the rest of the family when they come in."

"They can't have capsized," said Garth; "but Fogger never, never would stay out at light-up time. What else could happen, Joan?"

"Let's not worry," she said. "It's probably quite a simple delay. We'll make ourselves very miserable, if we begin trying to think of everything that might have happened."

But neither of them could eat much supper. The leaden dusk outside the windows thickened to an opaque darkness. The clouds were low and heavy, smothering every star. The lights of Quimpaug lay hidden behind the point, and no ships were moored in sight; not a glimmer broke the sullen dark.

Joan helped Garth upstairs and to bed.

"Please go and look once more out of the window in Fogger's room," he pleaded, as she was about to say good-night. "There's a lantern in the Ailouros always, and they'd have it lighted."

She left him, and going into the dark, empty room at the front of the house, she leaned over Jim's desk and gazed out into the impenetrable