"I see. I"ll have the flyer here in a minute. Don"t you want my car? It"s lighter."
"Or mine?" asked Norton eagerly, anxious to be of some service.
"Thank you both--no. Bess and I will make out all right. We don"t know who the girl is, nor what"s the matter. Get the car, Jack, do."
The boys, who had come back from their little trip shortly after the girls had made the strange rescue, talked about the happening, while Jack ran the _Flyaway_ out from the shed where it was kept with the other cars.
Soon Cora and Bess were on their way to pick up the physician.
"She must have received a blow on the head. That is the only way I can account for her long stupor. Or perhaps she has received some severe mental shock. Of course the exposure and the fright of the wreck would add to it."
It was Dr. Brown who spoke this way after examining the girl from the raft. Cora and Bess had made good time to get the medical man and bring him back to the bungalow.
"But she is coming around now," went on the physician. "We will have her opening her eyes in a moment."
"Perhaps the sight of this may help her when she begins to come to her senses," suggested Rosalie, bringing in the suitcase that had been on the raft with the girl. "She seemed to value it very much, to take it with her in the time of the excitement of the wreck," she went on. The bag had been lost sight of in the confusion of bringing the strange girl to the bungalow and in sending for the doctor. In fact, the other girls had almost forgotten that such a thing existed.
Rosalie now brought it in, sodden and damp from the sea water. She placed it on the floor near the couch on which the girl lay.
Idly Cora glanced at the suitcase. Some letters on it caught her eyes.
They were partly obliterated, either by abrasion, or the action of the sea water, but Cora could see that they formed a name. She leaned forward, and read half aloud:
"Nancy Ford."
"Girls! Girls!" Cora exclaimed. "Look--we have found her--the missing girl that Mrs. Raymond wanted so much to find. Nancy Ford! There she is!" and she pointed to the girl on the couch.
"Nancy Ford!" repeated Belle. "Who----"
"You don"t mean to say you don"t remember?" cried Cora. "The fire in our garage--the strange woman--the story she told--of the robbers--of Nancy Ford disappearing. There is Nancy Ford!"
"Look! her name is on the valise!" Cora pointed a slightly-trembling finger at it. "She is our waif from the sea. Oh, if she will explain things--if only everything is all right--and we could find Mrs. Raymond!"
"Perhaps--perhaps the missing money is in--that bag, girls!" whispered Belle.
The doctor turned around.
"Please keep a little quiet," he suggested. "She will revive in a few seconds, and I don"t want her to have too much of a shock. She will be all right, I think."
"To think that we have found Nancy Ford!" exclaimed Cora in a tense voice, but the room was so silent just then that it sounded louder than it otherwise would have done.
"Who is calling me?" came suddenly from the girl on the sofa. She sat up, looked around with big, staring eyes, in which the wonder grew as she noted the room and those in it.
"Who said Nancy Ford?" she demanded again.
"Easy, my dear, easy," said Dr. Brown, softly. "You are with friends and you are all right. Drink this," and he held some medicine to her lips.
The girl drank unresistingly and then lay back again on the pillows.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE STORY OF NANCY FORD
"When do you think we can talk to her--question her?" asked Cora of Dr.
Brown. It was some hours after Nancy had regained her senses. She had been fed some nourishing broth, and moved into a spare bedroom, where she was made comfortable.
"Is it absolutely necessary to question her?" the physician asked in turn.
"It seems to be important," returned Cora. "If she is really Nancy Ford a great deal depends on it. She may be able to clear the name of a woman who has suffered much. If we could question her, learn her story, we might be able to help both her and the woman in question, Mrs. Raymond, who is a sister of Mr. Haley."
"Oh, yes, the light keeper. I understood there was some mystery about his sister."
"She has disappeared, and is searching for this very girl we rescued from the sea," went on Cora. "I do not wish to make her ill, or disturb her, but if we could hear her story we might be able to act."
"Hum, yes!" mused Dr. Brown. "Well, I think by evening she will be strong enough to talk. I want her to rest now. Yes, you may question her then. I shall leave some medicine for her, but princ.i.p.ally she needs rest, and light but nourishing food. There is nothing serious the matter with her.
She has received no injury that I can find. The shock and the fright caused her to lose her senses--that and being almost starved."
"Poor girl! Out all alone--all night--on the ocean on that raft," remarked Cora.
"I should have died!" sighed Belle.
"Oh, human nature can stand more than we think," spoke the doctor. "Well, I must be going. I don"t know how I am to get around without my car."
"Use mine!" offered Jack, quickly. "I shan"t need it. The old _Get There_ needs running to keep her in good humor."
"Very well, I will, and thank you."
Dr. Brown looked in on his patient.
"She is sleeping," he said.
"That is good," murmured Cora. "But, oh! I do wish we could hear her story."
"The fellows are anxious, too," said Jack, he being alone allowed in his sister"s bungalow at this time.
There was a period of anxious waiting by Cora and her friends. Rosalie had gone back to the lighthouse to see if there was a duplicate list of the pa.s.sengers on the wrecked schooner. She had come back to report that her father had none, and did not know where one could be obtained.
The few members of the ship"s company remaining in the village could throw no light on the waif of the sea who had been so strangely picked up.
Undoubtedly she was the girl supposed to have been washed overboard.
"She is asking for you," reported Mrs. Chester, coming from the room of the girl that evening after supper. "She wants you, Cora."
"Are you sure she said me, Aunt Susan?"
"Yes, she described you. She seems to be worried about something."
"I will see her."