While he was comforting her, urging her to be patient and not to let Helen hear, Sam reëntered the room,—his breath gone with the dash down and up three flights of stairs,—walked slowly toward the balcony, and handed Sanford a yellow envelope. Its contents were as follows:—
Screamer’s boiler exploded 7.40 to-night.
Mate killed; Lacey and three men injured.
Joseph Bell.
Sanford looked hurriedly at his watch, forgetting, in the shock, to hand Mrs. Leroy the telegram.
Mrs. Leroy caught his arm. “Tell me quick! Who is it?”
“Forgive me, dear Kate, but I was so knocked out. It is no one who belongs to you. It is the boiler of the Screamer that has burst. Three men are hurt,” reading the dispatch again mechanically. “I wonder who they are?” as if he expected to see their names added to its brief lines.
For a moment he leaned back against the balcony, absorbed in deep thought.
“Twenty-three minutes left,” he said to himself, consulting his watch again. “I must go at once; they will need me.”
She took the telegram from his hand. “Oh, Henry, I am so sorry,—and the boat, too, you counted upon. Oh, how much trouble you have had over this work! I wish you had never touched it!” she exclaimed, with the momentary weakness of the woman. “But look! read it again.” Her voice rose with a new hope in it. “Do you see? Captain Joe signs it,—he’s not hurt!”