As she entered the house, Ruth's first glance was at the hall table, but there was no important-looking yellow envelope to suggest that her cablegram had arrived. Then her eye fell on the evening paper; perhaps that might tell that the "Utopia" was safely in port. She started to turn to the shipping news, but her gaze was caught by a headline on the first page, and she stood rigid, holding the paper in her shaking hands and trying to make sense of what she was reading.
"The 'Utopia' storm-swept
A passenger injured."
That was what she seemed to read, and below it an inch of fine type announced that during the severe storm which had hampered all ocean travel for the last few days the "Utopia" had been swept by heavy waves, and one of the passengers injured.
One of the passengers injured! That, of course, meant father! Ruth read it time after time until the printed words swam before her eyes, and she groped blindly for a chair so that she need not fall. There she sat feeling that limbs and tongue were in chains, and that she could neither move nor speak.
Katie, passing through the hall, was startled by the sight of the rigid little figure in the big hall chair, and frightened out of her wits when her sympathetic questions failed to bring forth any response. She flew out into the kitchen to Ellen, who came hurrying in with a face full of anxiety, and, kneeling before Ruth, took both the cold hands in her own warm clasp.
"What is it, Miss Ruth, darlin'? Tell me," she said coaxingly. At the friendly, human touch, Ruth's face relaxed. "Oh, Ellen," she cried, clinging to her closely, "some one on papa's steamer has been injured in the storm, and I know it must be papa."
Ellen looked dazed, and Ruth gave her the paper, pointing out the paragraph as she did so.
"Sure, Miss Ruth, I can't read it quickly when my mind is so unaisy.
Just read it to me, honey."
So Ruth read it over for the twentieth time and was surprised to find Ellen still looking cheerful as she finished.
"They don't give any names," said Ellen thoughtfully, "and wasn't it you yourself was telling me that there was over a hundred cabin passengers on that boat, to say nothing of the steerage?"