That word stood isolated in the middle of his universe, and his thoughts, mothlike, fluttered about it, singeing their wings in its flame. There was no coherent thought, only dazed consciousness of an awful wound.
There came a rap on his door, which grew insistent. “Come in,” he called, mechanically, and a workman entered.
“Everything’s ready. Maybe you’d like to look her over before you go home.”
“Eh?” said Potter. “What’s that?”
The man repeated. “It’s quitting-time,” he added.
Quitting-time! It had been daylight when he entered his room; now darkness had fallen. He had been unconscious of the unraveling of time.
“Hey, Mort, telegram for the boss,” another voice called from the machine-shop. Mort disappeared and presently placed the little yellow envelope in Potter’s hand. He opened it as an automaton might have opened it.
“Leaving Washington to-day; arrive Detroit in morning,” it said, and was signed “Craig.”
For a brief interval Potter was careless whether Major Craig ever arrived or not. The whole matter seemed blurred, distant, as some vague memory.... Then came a sudden vivid clearness, a cold, painful clearness, akin to that dreadful condition into which arrives a man who cannot sleep. There was a white incandescence about his perceptions; something stark, sharply distinct about realities. He leaped to his feet.
“Call the men here,” he said.