The doorbell rang sharply. It was what Black had been expecting all along. There was nothing to do but answer it. Mrs. Hodder was accustomed to do this only by request, and he had not asked her for it to-day, for she was more than usually busy in her kitchen. Black went to the door, leaving Fanny behind, and hoping against hope that it might not be some caller who would be certain to misunderstand the whole situation. It proved to be the one man whom he could have wished to see. Cary Ray had walked the street to a purpose, though he had not known, for he had met a messenger. With his message in his hand he had rushed to the manse door.
“Is Fanny here?”
“Yes. Come into my study, please.”
Breathless with his fast walk which had been all but a run, Cary confronted Fanny across the room. He crossed it, seized her hands, and stood looking down into her face with excited eyes. The drops stood out upon his forehead.
“You put me off too long,” he said. “I’m off—no time for anything but to throw my things together and catch the next train. I knew when the orders came they’d come this way. There isn’t even time for—what we’d have to get first if we did what I wanted. Perhaps—since you didn’t know your own mind—it’s just as well. Maybe—if I come back—you’ll know it better. And if I don’t—never mind. All I want is to get into the game somehow.”
Even at the moment Fanny looked past Cary at Robert Black.
“You see,” she said, “he calls it a game, too.”
“He won’t,” Black answered, “when he comes back—as please God he will.”
“I can’t stop a minute. Will you both go with me, over to my sister’s?”
“Of course.”