"Soon! I don't like the vague word," returned Lady Verner. "Why cannot you come for Christmas?"
"Christmas! I shall scarcely have gone."
"You will come, Lionel?"
"Very well, mother. As you wish it, I will."
A crimson flush—a flush of joy—rose to Lucy's countenance. Lionel happened to have glanced at her. I wonder what he thought of it!
His luggage had gone on, and he walked with a hasty step to the station. The train came in two minutes after he reached it. Lionel took his ticket, and stepped into a first-class carriage.
All was ready. The whistle sounded, and the guard had one foot on his van-step, when a shouting and commotion was heard. "Stop! Stop!" Lionel, like others, looked out, and beheld the long legs of his brother Jan come flying along the platform. Before Lionel had well known what was the matter, or had gathered in the hasty news, Jan had pulled him out of the carriage, and the train went shrieking on without him.
"There goes my luggage, and here am I and my ticket!" cried Lionel. "You have done a pretty thing, Jan. What do you say?"
"It's all true, Lionel. She was crying over the letters when I got there. And pretty well I have raced back to stop your journey. Of course you will not go away now. He's dead."
"I don't understand yet," gasped Lionel, feeling, however, that he did understand.