"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Lake, taking her trembling hands. "What train? How did the news come?"
"Why, our train!" returned the excited girl, bursting into tears. "The train that Oliver and Louisa and Rose must be in. Oh, Mrs. Lake! was it true that you had a presentiment of evil happening to it?--was that really your reason for declining to go?"
Clara, deathly pale, had sought the eyes of her husband. She was overwhelmed with astonishment and dismay; with a feeling that she could not describe and had never yet experienced. Had they really escaped danger, accident, perhaps death, from that strangely vivid dream of warning? Her faculties seemed bewildered.
"How has the news reached Katterley?" repeated Mr. Lake, drowning the words about the dream, for he was conscious that a thoughtless slip of his had given the clue to Miss Jupp.
"By telegraph," she answered; "and one of the porters ran up to our house to tell it, knowing Oliver and the girls went to Guild this morning and took return tickets. The station here is already besieged by a crowd. Poor papa is pushing his way through it."
Mr. Lake caught up his hat, when at the same moment who should come in but Oliver Jupp. Mary seized upon him with a cry.
"Now don't smother me," cried he to her. "First of all, we are all right; you see I am, and Rose and Louy are safe and well inside Coombe Dalton Station. My father sent me in to tell you; he said you were here; and he is gone home to reassure them."
"But, Jupp, how did you get to Katterley?" questioned Mr. Lake.
"I came on a stray engine. I thought they would all be in fits together at home, and I took the opportunity offered, of coming on to stop the alarm. The first person who laid hold of me at the station was the poor old governor, pretty nearly in a fit himself. It's an awful accident, though."
"How was it?" "Are many hurt?" "Did the boiler really burst?"