In two minutes Fairchild appeared.
“What! Arrived!” he cried, seizing each of us by a band. “Your steamer was overdue; when did you get in? Why didn't you telegraph from Cherbourg?”
“Why didn't I telegraph? But I did. Do you mean to say you haven't received my despatch?”
“Not the ghost of one. If I'd known you were coming this morning—— But wait.”
He stepped into the office of the hotel. Issuing thence in a moment, “There!” he cried, exhibiting a blue envelope, “here's your telegram. In America I should have received it twelve hours ago. But they manage these things better in France. It came last night, after I'd gone to bed and the authorities of this hostelery were too considerate to wake me. Then this morning, they say, they thought I was so much occupied that, they would do best to wait about delivering it till I was at leisure. That's French courtesy with a vengeance. However, you're safely arrived at last, and that's the important thing.”
“And Miriam? Miriam?” I demanded impatiently.
“The doctors are with her even now,” he answered.
“You got my cable despatch, of course, and put off the operation?”
“Yes, I got your despatch; and we put off the operation until all the physicians insisted that it must not be put off longer—that, if put off longer, it would be ineffective.”
Panic-stricken, “You don't mean to say,” I gasped, “you can't mean to say that it has been performed!”