"Why, what can she want?" asked one of the astonished ladies.
"I cannot imagine. Don't you think we—some of us ought to go and see if anything is the matter?"
"Nonsense! It is nothing where we would be of any service. What makes me wonder is what she can want of Mr. Ray; what made him look so startled?" (A pause.)
"Didn't Mrs. Turner say he was very attentive to her in Arizona, and that she threw him over for Captain Truscott?" (Tentatively.)
"It wasn't that at all!" promptly interrupted another, with the positive conviction of womankind. "Mrs. Wilkins told me all about it, and I know. It was another girl Mr. Ray was in love with, and—no, it was Mrs.—somebody—Tanner, whose husband was killed, and Mrs. Truscott did break an engagement with somebody——"
"I didn't know about that. What I say is that Mr. Ray was desperately in love with Mrs. Truscott, because——"
And by this time all four were talking at once, and the thread of conversation became involved.
But Ray had hurried on. What he read had indeed startled him.
"Come to me the moment you get this. I am in fearful trouble.
"G. P. T."