“She may not live through the night, the doctor says. You see,” he rambled along, incoherently talkative in his panic, “we were called away from the Antlers, suddenly, by a letter telling my mother her sister in Hampden was ill. So we all left, two weeks earlier than we had meant. When we got to Hampden my mother stayed there and I started back to Granite with Miss Shevlin. We took the branch road; and just outside of Magdeburg—”
“Party’s rung off long ago,” put in the operator.
Caleb, at Jack’s second sentence, had dropped the receiver, bolted from the hotel and hailed a night-hawk hansom. Already he was galloping through the empty streets toward the station; scribbling with unsteady hand on envelope-backs a series of orders and dispatches that should assure him a clear track and a record-breaking journey from the Capital to Magdeburg. This detail arranged, his brain ceased to act. Sense of time was wiped out. So, mercifully, was realization of pain. In the cab of the road’s fastest engine he crouched through the long hours of darkness; while the wheels jolted out an irritating, meaningless sing-song refrain that ran:
“Haven’t—you—started?—For—God’s—sake,—come!”
To still the hateful iteration and to rouse himself to some semblance of calm, Caleb pulled from his side pocket a bunch of letters brought on from his office at Granite that same afternoon, by his secretary. He had been busy when the package arrived and had thrust it into his coat. Now he drew it forth and mechanically began to glance over the envelopes.
It was personal mail and had been accumulating for days. Desirée always addressed her letters to his hotel at the Capital; and his secretary attended to official mail. So Caleb had not ordered the forwarding of such personal letters as might come to the office. In fact he had been mildly annoyed at the secretary’s well meant act in bringing them to him.
Through the small sheaf of envelopes his thick fingers wandered. Suddenly, the man’s lack-lustre look brightened to one of astonishment. Midway in the package was an envelope in Desirée Shevlin’s hand. Letting the rest of the letters slide to the swaying floor the Fighter nervously caught this up. Why had she written to the office instead of to his hotel? Probably, he thought, by mere mistake. A mistake that meant a few moments of surcease now from his nightmare journey.
With ice-damp fingers Conover held the letter; tore it open as though the ripping of the paper caused him physical pain; smoothed wide the pages with awkward, awed gentleness, and read:
“Heart’s Dearest:—Just as soon as you’ve read this, you can come straight to see me. Honestly! For I’ll be at home. Mrs. Hawarden’s sister is ill. We only heard of it by this noon’s mail and we are leaving by the night train. At first I wanted to telegraph you at the Capital. But if I do I’m so afraid you will drop everything and come to meet me. And you mustn’t. You must stay at the Capital till you win your fight there for all the men who have put money in Steeloid. We are so happy we can’t afford to do anything now to make other people blue. Can we? So stay and win for them. That’s why I’m sending this to your office.