"A letter for mother?" she cried. "Oh, give it to me, Betty. It may be from dad. Oh, it is! It is!" she exclaimed, as she saw her father's familiar writing. "He must have heard about Will. Mother! Mother—" she broke away from the girls and took the porch steps two at a time, waving the letter wildly as she went.
"Oh, if it's only good news, if it's only good news!" Betty found herself saying over and over again as she, with Mollie, followed Grace into the house.
They found Mrs. Ford in the living room, pale and trembling a little, holding the envelope in her hand as though she dared not open it. Grace had collapsed in a chair and was gazing up at her mother with such agonized pleading in her eyes that the girls could not look at her.
Then very slowly Mrs. Ford tore open the envelope. At the same moment the girls seemed to sense that they might be in some manner intruding, and with one accord they moved over to the window and stood looking out.
After a wait that seemed interminable they heard Grace say in a strained, far-away little voice:
"Mother, what is it? Can't you tell me? I think I'll die if I have to wait any longer."
"Read it," they heard Mrs. Ford say in a choked voice, as a rustle of paper told that she had handed the letter to Grace. "I can't tell you dear. Oh, my boy, my boy!" And she sank down in a chair and covered her face with her hands.
The girls turned from the window and started to leave the room, for they felt that the moment was too sacred for even them who were so intensely interested, to share.
Just as they reached the door they paused, arrested by a cry from Grace.
"Seriously wounded!" she read in a muffled voice. "Oh, Mother, for all we know, that may mean Will is—dead!"