Susie looked up, bewildered, into the twins’ anxious faces.  What did it matter if she were caught, or blamed, or punished?  The idea of leaving Dick, even to make a sensational rescue, never entered her head for a minute. Leave him, frightened and alone, out on the dark rocks!  As she had herself said, such a little while ago, “not for a king’s ransom.”  She only wanted the twins to go and leave her in peace, and so she told them with that plainness of speech which to Susie seemed to suit the occasion.  “Please, please go,” she said.  “I can carry him quite well after he has rested a little bit.”

“You will be found out,” said the twins warningly.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Susie.

“It seemed to matter a good deal a little while ago,” said Dot resentfully.

“Nothing matters now,” said Susie, “except to get Dick home.”

“Well, you can’t rest long,” said Dash, “because the tide’s coming in.”

Susie looked vaguely at the island behind her, with the waves splashing against its sides, and then at the glistening rocks that made rough stepping-stones to land.  She had no idea about the tides; she only knew that on some days the rocks showed more above the water than on others, but there were always rocks.  She shook her head impatiently.

“I know all about the tide,” she said.  “I am perfectly certain I can get home all right.”

“Oh, you’re always perfectly certain,” said Dot.

“So I am,” said Susie.

“Well, good-night,” said Dash.  “Don’t fiddle about too long with Dick, that’s all.”

“Good-night,” said Susie cheerfully.

She saw the two active figures leaping away into the twilight, splashing from rock to rock, till they became gray and indistinct like moving shadows.  She felt suddenly chilled and lonely, and the silence and gloom enveloped them—­a forlorn little group in the midst of the growing dark.

“Dickie,” said Susie presently, “we must start back before it gets any darker.  I think it’s going to pour.  If I put my arm round you, do you think you can walk?”

“Why, the water would go over my head,” said Dick.

He pushed out a fat leg and let it dangle against the rock; already the white spray was splashing over it.  Susie stared at it incredulously.  When the twins left, it had been a shallow pool, and they had waded through it.

“Oh, hurry up, Dick!” she said, in a sudden panic.  “Mother will be frightened.”

“It’s fun, though,” said Dick.

Fun!  The word did not seem at all the right word to Susie, but she said nothing.  She knew now in a flash what the twins meant by the rising tide, but all she saw was her mother’s face with the fear on it.

But Susie had not been the eldest of the little family for so many years for nothing.  She knew that, whatever happened, Dick must not get bronchitis, and she put her own fear bravely on one side to think of him.