rain. I will rouse the
neighborhood and we men will search the woods and fields. We will
inquire at all the farmhouses in the vicinity. Why, we are sure to find
Eleanor. You girls must run along home and wait until morning. I can't
have you all ill on my hands with pneumonia."

Miss Jenny Ann, Mrs. Preston and Miss Betsey were crawling out of the
phaeton when Mr. Preston led three of the girls back to "I can't go
home, Jenny Ann," insisted Madge. "It was my fault that Nellie is lost.
Uncle and Aunt will never forgive me."

It was in vain that Miss Jenny Ann pleaded, argued and commanded the
little captain to return with the other women to the Preston farm. She
simply would not go. So Phyllis stayed behind with her for company.

Just before daylight one of the farmers who lived near the woods where
Eleanor was supposed to have been left took the two girls home with him.
Eleanor had not then been found.

CHAPTER XV

THE BLACK HOLE

Hours and hours had gone by, and Eleanor had lain quite still. Sometimes
she was conscious, but oftener she was not. The pain in her shoulder,
the exhaustion from the long waiting, had made her delirious. When the
rain began it seemed at first to refresh her, she was so hot and
feverish. Later rheumatic twinges began to dart through her injured
shoulder; her whole body was racked with pain. She seemed to be in some
horrible nightmare. She forgot what had happened to her. She no longer
realized that she was waiting for her friends to come to her rescue; she
only believed that, if she could in some way get back to her own home,
"Forest House," the agony and terror would cease.

In her delirium Eleanor managed to get up from the wet ground. She never
knew how or when, but she remembered groping her way cautiously through
the dark forest. The hundreds of trees seemed like a great army of
terrible men and women waving angry arms at the frightened girl. Now and
then she would bump into one of the trees. Eleanor would then step back
and apologize; she thought that she had collided with a human being.

At times Eleanor was dimly conscious that she could hear the sound of
her own voice. She was singing in high, sweet tones a song of her
babyhood:

"When the long day's work is over,
When the light begins to fade,
Watching, waiting in the gloaming,
Weary, faint and half afraid,
Then from out the deep'ning twilight,
Clear and sweet a voice shall come,