“Here,” he ordered with a ghost of his old authority. “Have that telegram sent off in a rush. It’ll clear up the tracks for me when we strike the C. G. & X. line, an’ let us in a half-hour earlier. Do as I say. Don’t bother me! I’ve no time to fool with the measly Steeloid deal now.”
For an hour and a half Caleb Conover stared with unseeing, glazed eyes at the gray skies and rain-rotted fields as his train sped toward Granite. He had a curious numbness in his head. A dumb nausea gripped him. For the first time in his life, he could not think consecutively. All his mind and body seemed to centre around one hideous truth: Desirée Shevlin was terribly ill. Perhaps dying. She wanted him. And he was not there.
He had never known until now that he had an imagination. Yet, during the century-long train ride, the pressure on his brain lifted a bit from time to time and he could see the dainty, dark little head turning endlessly from side to side on its tumbled hot pillow; the white face whence the glow and life had been stricken; the delirium hoarse voice calling—ever calling—for him.
She had been so bright, so happy, so strong—only the day before. She had gone driving with him after church. She had been telling him about a country visit she was going to make—to-day—yes, she was to have started to-day. This noon. And on the same drive—what was it she had worn? It had gone prettily with her eyes, whatever it was. Those eyes of hers had such odd, wonderful little lights in them. What color were they? And what was it Caine had told her they held—oh, yes—‘prisoned laughter.’ That was a queer sort of phrase. But she had seemed to like it.
Why hadn’t the old fool who built the engine made one that could travel faster than a hand car?
The express—thanks to Caleb’s track-clearing telegram—rolled into Granite station a full half hour ahead of time. Long before the cars came to a lurching halt under the sheds, Conover, with all an old-time railroad man’s deftness, had swung off the moving train and had started down the platform at a run. Through bevies of departing passengers he clove a rough, unapologetic way. Station hands leaped nimbly aside and gazed in gaping amaze after their hurrying President. Past the platform, through the vaulted waiting room toward the street beyond; and, at the outer door—
“Caleb!”
Conover halted, dumbfounded, shaking, at the call. There in the doorway he stood, his face a dull purple, his eyes bulging, staring down at—Desirée Shevlin.