Campbell, suddenly gone white, put out his hand and leaned a moment against the mantelpiece. He did not now leave the room. The door-bell rang.
"Dr. Street," murmured Lloyd.
But what had happened in the City? There in the still dark hours of that hot summer night an event of national, perhaps even international, importance had surely transpired. It was in the air—a sense of a Great Thing come suddenly to a head somewhere in the world. Footsteps sounded rapidly on the echoing sidewalks. Here and there a street door opened. From corner to corner, growing swiftly nearer, came the cry of newsboys chanting extras. A subdued excitement was abroad, finding expression in a vague murmur, the mingling of many sounds into one huge note—a note that gradually swelled and grew louder and seemed to be rising from all corners of the City at once.
There was a step at the sick-room door. Dr. Street? No, Rownie—Rownie with two telegrams for Lloyd.
Lloyd took them from her, then with a sharp, brusque movement of her head and suddenly smitten with an idea, turned from them to listen to the low, swelling murmur of the City. These despatches—no, they were no "call" for her. She guessed what they might be. Why had they come to her now? Why was there this sense of some great tidings in the wind? The same tidings that had come to the world might come to her—in these despatches. Might it not be so? She caught her breath quickly. The terror, the fearful anxiety that had haunted and oppressed her for so long, was it to be lifted now at last? The Enemy that lurked in the dark corners, ever ready to clutch her, was it to be driven back and away from her forever? She dared not hope for it. But something was coming to her; she knew it, she felt it; something was preparing for her, coming to her swifter with every second—coming, coming, coming from out the north. She saw Dr. Street in the room, though how and when he had arrived she could not afterward recall. Her mind was all alert, intent upon other things, listening, waiting. The surgeon had been leaning over the bed. Suddenly he straightened up, saying aloud to Campbell:
"Good, good, we're safe. We have pulled through."
Lloyd tore open her telegrams. One was signed "Bennett," the other "Ferriss."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Campbell.
"Oh," cried Lloyd, a great sob shaking her from head to heel, a smile of infinite happiness flashing from her face. "Oh—yes, thank God, we—we have pulled through."
"Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?" Hattie, once more conscious, raised her voice weak and faint.