Elizabeth crouched back in her chair. "It is Blair. He has followed me—"
"No, no; it is somebody who has lost his way in the rain. Yes, I hear him; he is coming in to ask the road."
There were hurried steps on the porch, and Elizabeth grew so deadly white that David said again, reassuringly: "It's some passer-by. I'll send him about his business."
Loud, vehement knocking interrupted him, and he said, cheerfully: "Confound them, making such a noise! Don't be frightened; it is only some farmer—"
He took up a lamp and, closing the door of the living-room behind him, went out into the hall; some one, whoever it was, was fumbling with the knob of the front door as if in terrible haste. David slipped the bolt and would have opened the door, but it seemed to burst in, and against it, clinging to the knob, panting and terrified, stood his mother.
"David! Is she—Am I too late? David! Where is Elizabeth? Am I too late?"
CHAPTER XXXIII
The rainy dawn which Elizabeth had seen glimmering in the steam and smoke of the railroad station filtered wanly through Mercer's yellow fog. In Mrs. Maitland's office-dining-room the gas, burning in an orange halo, threw a livid light on the haggard faces of four people who had not slept that night.
When Blair had come frantically back from his fruitless quest at the hotel to say, "Is she here, now?" Mrs. Richie had sent him at once to Mr. Ferguson, who, roused from his bed, instantly took command.
"Tell me just what has happened, please?" he said.