'There's more hope in that!' said Lance.
'I have none! Don't you remember poor Tom the stoker?
'Twas just what they said of him,' said Will, raising his face for a moment. 'And here they've sent me to tell Wilmet! I—O Lance, I just cannot do it. 'Tis bad enough at home!' and he lay over the desk again, almost convulsed with grief.
'I will go and tell Wilmet,' said Felix, who had come in unperceived by him, and received the telegrams from Lance. 'She is at Miss Pearson's. Is any one going to him, Will?'
'My poor father!' gasped William. 'I don't believe it is any good! But I shall go with him, unless—He sent me on to see whether she—Wilmet would go. You won't let her, Felix? I must go on to see whether I can get a nurse at St. Faith's.'
'I believe Wilmet will wish to go,' said Felix.
'And be the best nurse,' added Lance.
'If there were any nursing to do,' said William, looking at them in amaze. 'I haven't the least hope he can last till we can come out! But my father will hope—that's the worst—and wants to have her rather than me. Don't tell her so, though; I don't know what I am saying. Only she should not be persuaded to go! Oh, that it should come to this!'
'I will leave him to you, poor fellow!' said Felix, beckoning Lance to the door, as William again flung himself across the desk. 'I think she will go, and that it will be better for her.'
He was interrupted by the arrival of a telegraph boy with a message to him in his editorial capacity, which threw more light on the accident.