The shouting and the cheering ceased instantly.

“Oh, she’s just playing a trick on us,” scoffed Margery Brown.

Suddenly the keen eyes of Jane McCarthy caught sight of something that sent her heart leaping.  That something was a series of bubbles that rose to the surface.  Jane gazed wide-eyed, neither moving nor speaking, then suddenly hurled herself into the pond.  Two loud splashes followed her own dive into the water.  Tommy and Miss Elting were plunging ahead with all speed.  Jane was the first to reach the scene.  She dived, came up empty-handed, then dived again.  Tommy essayed to make a dive, but did not get in deep enough to fully cover her back.  Miss Elting made an error in her calculations, as Jane had done on the first dive, missing the sunken automobile by several feet.

Now Hazel sprang into the water and swam to them as fast as she knew how to propel herself.  Jane shot out of the water and waved both arms frantically above her head.

“Spread out!” she cried in a strained, frightened voice.

“Did—­didn’t you find her?” gasped Miss Elting.

“No.”

Jane was gone again, leaving a wake that reached all the way to the beach, so violent had been her floundering dive.

Tommy, who had raised her head from the water a short distance from where the guardian was paddling, uttered a scream.

“There thhe ith!” she cried; “there she ith!  Right down there.  Come in a hurry.  She ith under the car.  I could thee her plainly.  Oh, I’m tho thcared!” Tommy began paddling for the shore with all speed.

Miss Elting did not answer.  Instead, she took a long dive.  About this time Jane came up.  Hazel, who was making for the spot where the guardian had disappeared, pointed to it.  Jane understood.  It took her but a few seconds to reach the center of the rippling circle left by the guardian; then Crazy Jane’s feet kicked the air a couple of times.  She had taken an almost perpendicular dive.  But it seemed that she had not been under water more than a second or two when she lunged to the surface.  A few feet from her Miss Elting appeared, threw herself over on her back and lay gasping for breath.

“She’th got her!” screamed Tommy.  “Harriet ith dead!”

Gazing out over the pond she saw Jane swimming swiftly toward shore, dragging the apparently lifeless body of Harriet Burrell.  Miss Elting and Hazel were closing up on Jane rapidly.  Reaching her side a moment later, the guardian took one of Harriet’s arms and assisted in towing her in.

Tommy remembered afterward having been fascinated by the expressions in their faces.  She stared and stared.  The faces of the two women were white and haggard.  Still farther back she saw only Hazel’s eyes.  They were so large that Tommy was scarcely able to credit their belonging to Hazel.  Had Tommy known it, her own face was more pale and haggard at that moment than those of her companions.