The proud blood mantled again over the face, the strong sweet beauty of which the Boy so loved. Her letter to the Professor had not been easy to write. She had had to be true to herself, and true to him, in the light of what she knew to be his real feeling in the matter; bearing in mind that before long he would almost certainly learn from Miss Ann that she had replied to his proposal after having read his sentiments on the subject, so candidly expressed on the first page of his letter to his sister.
To relieve her mind, after this intricate whirl of cross-correspondence, she took up the Daily Graphic, and opened it, casually turning the pages.
Suddenly there looked out at her from the central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue. He was seated in his flying-machine steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many wires. His cap was on the back of his head, his bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm young lips, parted in a smile, seemed to say; "I jolly well mean to do it!" It was the very picture she had seen in the Professor's Daily Mirror, in her dream of the night before. Below was an account of the flight from Folkestone which he was about to attempt.
Then she remembered, with a shock of realization, that the flight across the Channel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, was to take place on that very day. His telegram, of the night before, had said: "I am going to do a big fly to-morrow. Wish me luck." Ah, what if it ended as she had seen it end in her dream: great broken wings; a mass of tangled wire; and the Boy—her Boy—with matted hair, and wounded head, asleep beneath the sailcloth!
Her heart stood still.
With their perfect joy so near its fulfilment, she could not let him take the risk. Was there time to stop him?
She looked at the paper. The start was for 2 p.m. It was now eleven o'clock.
She remembered his last words: "When you want me and send—why, I will come from the other end of the world."
She never quite knew how she reached the telegraph-office. It seemed almost as dreamlike as her flight from the top to the bottom of the Folkestone cliffs. But it was not a dream this time; it was desperate reality.
Why do people always break the points of the pencils hanging from strings in the telegraph-offices? Surely it is possible to write a telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that condition, for the next person in a hurry.