The Automobile Girls at Washington eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 206 pages of information about The Automobile Girls at Washington.

The Automobile Girls at Washington eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 206 pages of information about The Automobile Girls at Washington.

Yet with all Harriet’s air of bravado, however, there was one point in her story which she did not mention.  In return for her delivery of certain of her father’s state papers Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon had promised to advance to Harriet the five hundred dollars necessary to pay her dressmaker.  Harriet had agreed only to receive it as a loan.  And she tried to comfort herself with the idea that her friends were only doing her a kindness in exchange for the favor she was to do for them.  Still, the thought of the money worried Harriet.  But how else was she to be saved from the weight of her stern father’s displeasure?

CHAPTER XX

Foiled!

At Harriet’s request Bab and Ruth went silently out of her room, their faces white and frightened.

“Ruth, is there any place where we can be alone?” Barbara whispered faintly.  “I must talk with you.”

Ruth nodded, and the two friends found their way into the library, turning the key in the lock.  Then they stood facing each other, speechless, for a moment, from the very intensity of their feelings.

“Ruth, you must do something,” Bab entreated.  “The papers that Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Dillon are making Harriet get for them they do not intend to use for a joke.  Oh, Ruth, they are no doubt important state papers!  Harriet may be betraying her country and ruining her father by placing these papers in their hands.”

“I think, too, that Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon are spies,” Ruth returned more quietly.  “And, of course, we must do something to prevent their getting their hands on the papers.”

“But what can we do?” Barbara demanded sharply.  “We cannot tell Mr. Hamlin of Harriet’s deed.  It would be too cruel of us.  Nor can we confront Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon with the accusation.  They would only laugh at us, and declare that we were mad to have imagined any such thing.  Then, again, we would be betraying Harriet’s confidence.  We do not know just what state papers Harriet is to give to them, but they must be very, very valuable.  I suppose those dreadful people will have the papers copied, sell our country’s secret, and return the papers to Harriet when all the mischief has been done.  Ruth, I believe, now, that Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon both meant to make me steal Mr. Hamlin’s papers.  Then they would have declared I had sold them to some one.  And Mr. Hamlin would never have suspected his friends.  Now, they think poor Harriet will be too much afraid to betray them.”

Bab’s voice trembled slightly.  She realized how nearly she had been the dupe of these two clever schemers.  She felt that she and Ruth must save Harriet at all events.

“Mrs. Wilson tried to steal Mr. Hamlin’s papers the night she masqueraded as a ghost,” Barbara continued.  “I picked up the envelope she dropped on the floor in the hall.”

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The Automobile Girls at Washington from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.