"Ah, Mary!" he whispered. "Mary!"
LIV
As they left the boathouse an hour later and walked up the steep path to the camp, once more that sense of coming disaster drove into her mind and banished the memory of the past hour, when she had forgotten it. What did it mean? She recalled that she had had dark presentiments before in her life, and they had always come in the form of this sudden mental invasion, as if some malignant homeless spirit exulted in being the first to hint at the misfortune to come.
But the camp was silent. Every one, apparently, had gone to bed, and slept the sleep of valiant souls and weary bodies. One lamp burned in the living-room, and Clavering turned it out and they parted lingeringly, and she went up to her room.
She had barely taken off her coat and scarf when she heard a tap on her door. She stared for a moment in panic, then crossed the room swiftly and opened it. Mr. Dinwiddie, wrapped against the cold in a padded dressing-gown and with noiseless slippers on his feet, entered and closed the door behind him.
"What has happened?" she demanded sharply. "Something. I know it."
"Don't look so frightened, my dear. I have no bad news for you. Only it's rather annoying, and I knew I shouldn't get a word alone with you in the morning."
"What is it? What is it?"
"I had this telegram an hour ago from Trent." He took a sheet of paper from the pocket of his dressing-gown, covered with handwriting. "Of course those bumpkins down in Huntersville took their time about telephoning it up. Luckily the telephone is over in Larsing's room——"