But Betty had no intention of coming back.  She turned and faced the girls calmly, though inwardly she was trembling.

“Of course I am going back,” she said.  “Professor Dempsey may be in one of the other rooms and he may be sick.  If nobody will go with me, I’m going in alone.”

Of course the three girls could not let her go in alone, so they trailed back at her heels into the house, being very careful, however, to leave the door wide open behind them, in case a hasty retreat became necessary.

Cautiously Betty opened the door at the other end of the room and stepped into what had evidently been a sort of rough kitchen.  Now it was nothing but a nightmare like the other room, and she shuddered as she looked about at the desolate confusion.

There was a door at the farther end of this room, and after some hesitation and an inward struggle Betty crossed hastily to it and flung it wide open.

What she half expected and feared to find there nobody but Betty herself ever knew, but whatever it was, she gave a great sigh of relief at not finding it there.  The room was upset, though not quite as badly as the other two, but there was no sign of human occupancy anywhere.

She turned to the girls who had come up behind her and were eagerly and half shudderingly peering over her shoulder.

“There’s nothing here,” she announced, the relief she felt showing in her voice, “and as there doesn’t seem to be any other room in the place, I suppose we might as well go back.”

Echoing her suggestion heartily, the girls started to retrace their steps when a slight sound in the other room made them stop short in a panic.

“What was that?” Amy questioned, but Mollie held up her hand impatiently.

There came the sound of some one stumbling over something.  This was followed by a muttered exclamation.

While the girls looked about them wildly for a means of escape Mollie began to laugh hysterically.

“We have a visitor,” she announced in a strangled voice.  “And he is between us and the only door in the place.  Come on, girls, let’s see who it is.”

They stepped out into the cluttered living room and came face to face with a young man who seemed more startled at seeing them than they had been at sight of him.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief.  Also they felt a rather hysterical desire to laugh long and foolishly.

As it was, the stranger stood staring at the girls and the girls at him so long that the funny side of the situation struck Betty and she really did begin to laugh.

“We haven’t the slightest idea who you are,” she told the astonished young man.  “But I am sure of one thing, and that is that we were never so glad to see any one in all our lives as we are to see you.”

CHAPTER X