"Yes, I have just heard," I replied. "He is on his way back and I wrote you this morning at Southampton."
I watched her closely. For a moment she drove on, looking neither to the right or left, but I saw that her lower lip was being pressed on by her teeth.
"He—he never let me know," she finally said. "I—I hope he will return well and happy."
"Pardon me. I am afraid that something has happened to him," I said, again. "Gordon is the sort of fellow who would see the thing through. He would go on to the end, you know, and—and he didn't write, this time. I have the cable here. You might stop a moment under these trees."
She brought the machine to a standstill, gently, with no undue pressure of brake, losing none of her expertness, and put her hand out for the paper I held.
"I see," she said, very simply and quietly, though the paper shook a little in her grasp. "He has been very badly hurt, Mr. Cole. Otherwise he would have remained, until he was well again, to take up the work once more. I—I would give anything on earth to meet that steamer!"
"The easiest thing in the world, Miss Van Rossum."
"No, the hardest, the most impossible," she retorted, quickly. "He—he might not be glad to see me, else he would have cabled me also, I think. You will be there, of course! Be very sure you meet him, Mr. Cole, and then, please—please let me know what has happened, and find out for me whether there is anything I can do. You promise, don't you?"
I put out my hand and she crushed it, nervously, with wonderful strength, and let it go at once.
"We will go on now, I think," she said, and pressed the selfstarter. Soon we were in the main driveway again, among a flooding and ebbing tide of carriages and motors. Some women bowed to her and she returned the salutations with a graceful move of her head. She drove as easily as usual, and the turn was completed. Finally, she dropped me off at the club and went on, after brief but very genuine thanks.