"Sylvia, there's been an accident. Phil's hurt--dying, maybe."
He put out his arm quickly, for Sylvia swayed toward him with eyes that told him what perhaps he had known in his heart all the time.
CHAPTER XXII
UNTO THE FOREST
Sylvia did not faint. Indeed it seemed to her as if she had never in all her life been so quick in every fiber as she was at the moment she heard Jack's voice saying those fearful illuminating words, "Phil--dying, they think." It was as if a great clean wave swept over her leaving her purged of misunderstanding and doubt and weakness and compromise. With one blinding flash of light she saw clear. She drew away from Jack's arms.
"Tell me about it. No, I am all right. Tell me."
There was little to tell. A crowded street, a heedless chauffeur, a toddling Italian baby escaped from its mother's fruit stand. These were the details. There was nothing unusual about them. Such accidents happen daily in great cities. One scarcely hears of them they are so frequent of occurrence. The wonder is there are not more of them when human life teems so thick and is held so cheap. But, unfortunately, clear-witted, quick-moving, strong-limbed young ex-football heroes are not always at hand as in this case. The baby was happily unhurt, but Phil Lorrimer lay in the hospital at the point of death.
Instead of keeping a luncheon engagement with his friend, Jack Amidon had been called upon to take charge of a grave situation. Finally, there being nothing left to do, he had come back to Greendale to tell Mrs. Lorrimer--Mrs. Lorrimer and Sylvia.
"I thought it would be better to tell his mother myself," he said to Sylvia. "Telegrams knock you out so. She is a wonder, though. Not a whimper. She's going up on the five o'clock from Baltimore. I'm taking her in, in the car."
"I am going, too," said Sylvia.