“Here she comes now,” said Sylvia with a great sigh of relief.
The footsteps crossed the porch and then stopped. Instead of the sound of the front door opening as they expected there came a heavy knock.
“How queer,” said Sylvia, “she never knocks. There’s no one to let her in.”
Katherine hastened out to the hall door. A man stood outside. “Does Mrs. Deane live in this house?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Katherine.
“I’m Mr. Grossman, the man she works for,” he said. Katherine admitted him. “The girl, is she here?” he asked. Katherine brought him into the room. Sylvia looked up inquiringly.
Without greeting or preamble he blurted out, “Your aunty, she’s been hurt. Somebody just telephoned me from such a hospital in the city. She was run over by a taxicab and her collarbone broke and her head hurt. She’s now by the hospital. She tells them to tell me and I should let you know.”
He stopped talking and whirled his hat around in his hand as though ill at ease.
Sylvia sank back in her chair, dead white, her eyes staring at him with a curiously intent gaze, as though trying to comprehend the size of the calamity which had befallen her.
Tingling with pity, Katherine looked into Sylvia’s anguished eyes, and in the stress of emotion she suddenly remembered Nyoda’s name. Sheridan. Sheridan. Mrs. Andrew Sheridan. Carver House. 241 Oak Street. How could she ever have forgotten it?