“And you don’t want me to stay here with you?”
“No—oh, no.”
As once before, Lois waited for that train—yet how differently! If that injured feeling rose, for an instant, at his not having sent her word, she crushed it back as one would crush the head of a viper that showed itself between the crevices of the hearthstone. She would not pity herself—she would not pity herself! She knew now that madness lay that way.
The night was clear and warm, the stars were shining, as she got up and sat by the window, looking out from behind the curtain, her beautiful braided hair over one shoulder. The last train came in, the people from it, in twos and threes, straggled down the street, but not Justin. He must have missed that last train out—of course he must have missed it!
We are apt to fancy causeless disaster to those we love; the amount of “worry” more or less willingly indulged in by uncontrolled minds seems at times enough to swamp the understanding. Yet there is a foreboding, unsought, unwelcomed, combated, which, once felt, can never be counterfeited; it carries with it some chill, unfathomed quality of truth.
Lois knew now that she had had this foreboding all day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“And you haven’t heard anything of him yet?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Alexander. I’m sorry—oh, so sorry—to have nothing more to tell you. But I’m sure we’ll hear something before morning.”
Bailey Girard spoke with confidence, his eyes bent controllingly on Lois, who trembled as she stood in the little hallway, looking up at him, with Dosia behind her. This was the third night since that one when Justin had failed to appear, and there had been no word from him in the interim. Owing to that curious way that women have of waiting for events to happen that will end suspense, rather than seeking to end it by any unaccustomed action of their own, no inquiry had been made at the Typometer Company until late in the afternoon of the next day, which had been passed in the hourly expectation of hearing from Justin or seeing him walk in. However, nobody at the company knew anything of Justin’s movements, except that he had left the office rather early the afternoon before, and had been seen to take a car going up-town. It was presumable that he had been called suddenly out of town, and had sent some word to Mrs. Alexander that had miscarried.