"Well, he might be a little more explicit," pouted Ray. "If I were his wife, that wouldn't satisfy me."
Helen laughed lightly. Her eyes sparkling, her usually pale cheeks filled with a ruddy color from her walk in the park, the lawyer thought he had never seen her looking so pretty.
"It satisfies me," she said, her face all lit up with joyous excitement. "All I want to know is that he is safe and on his way home. The cablegram is dated Thursday. Then he's already on the water three days! I wonder why we didn't hear before?"
Mr. Steell glanced over her shoulder.
"The dispatch has been delayed. Don't you see? It says, 'delayed in transmission.'"
Helen turned round, her face radiant.
"When ought he to get here?"
The lawyer was silent for a moment as if calculating. Then, looking up, he said:
"The Abyssinia is not a very fast boat. I suppose she is the best he could get. She's due at Southampton two weeks from to-day. A week after that, he ought to be in New York—providing nothing happens."
Helen, who was still reading and re-reading the cablegram, looked up quickly. With a note of alarm in her voice, she exclaimed: