Nancy caught up her hat and with a hurried goodbye dashed out the back door to the garage. In a few minutes she was speeding toward the cottage on the lake.
“I hope Mrs. Willoughby doesn’t get there before I do,” she thought. “I’d rather talk to Emily alone.”
After a short drive she came within sight of the cottage and was relieved to see that a light was shining through the windows. Parking the roadster, she hurried up the path and rapped on the door.
“Nancy!” Emily gasped, as she flung open the door to admit her friend. “Oh, I’m so glad you came!”
“You’ve been crying,” Nancy observed quietly.
“I’ve lost my inheritance, Nancy. Mrs. Willoughby thinks we’ll get the jewels back, but I’m sure we’ll not. I was counting on the money so much! Now I can’t help Dick!”
As Emily Crandall spoke she looked away and tried to keep back the tears. She did not succeed, and when the two girls entered the living room she flung herself on the couch and burst into a paroxysm of weeping.
“Oh, it’s too dreadful, Nancy,” she sobbed. “To have this inheritance come to me and then have it snatched away just when I’d planned to do so much with it! It’s the loss of my grandmother’s jewels and my not being able to help Dick and having to postpone my marriage, all jumbled into one!”
Nancy waited for a few minutes, then as the sobs grew quieter said comfortingly:
“Perhaps the fortune will be recovered.”