“How do you know the thing was to a lady?” Burns demanded.
“That's easy. No man looks as upset as you did over a communication to another man. What do you write to her for, anyhow, when she's as near as Washington?”
“What?”
“Doesn't she keep you informed? Winifred says Martha says Ellen came back up to Washington yesterday for the wedding of a friend—hastily arranged—to an army officer suddenly ordered somewhere—old friend of Ellen's—former bridesmaid of hers, I believe. She—”
Burns had stopped short in the middle of the hubbly, half-frozen street they were crossing. “How long does she stay in Washington?”
“I don't know. Ask Win. Probably not long, since she only came for this wedding. It's tonight, I think she said. Aren't you coming?”
Burns walked on at a rapid stride with which Chester, shorter-legged and narrower-chested, found it difficult to keep up. They had their tramp, a four-mile course which they were accustomed to cover frequently together at varying paces. Chester thought they had never covered it quite so quickly nor so silently before. For Burns, from the moment of receiving Chester's news, appeared to fall into a reverie from which it was impossible to draw him, and the subject of which his companion found it not difficult to guess. After the first half mile, Chester, than whom few men were more adaptable to a friend's mood, accepted the situation and paced along as silently as Burns, until the round was made and the two were at Burns's door.
“Good night. Afraid I've been dumb as an oyster,” was Burns's curt farewell, and Chester chuckled as he walked away.
“Something'll come of the dumbness,” he prophesied to himself.
Something did. It was a telegram, telephoned to the office by a sender who rejoiced that having one's left arm in a sling did not obstruct one's capacity to send pregnant messages by wire. He had obtained the address from Martha Macauley, also over the telephone: