To Chick, when the opportunity came, Nick said:
“I think now that we may look for rapid developments. The plotters have commenced the campaign, and it is more than likely that they will seek to rush things from this out. It is not improbable that they may think I am out of the city and that, therefore, it is a good time to strike.”
Developments did come along rapidly after that.
As soon as Mrs. Danton had been properly cared for, and her husband and son notified, Mercedes wrote a letter to Nick Carter in which she told him of the “accident,” and expressed her regret that she had hastened his departure from the house just at the time when she needed him most; and she closed by saying:
“I know it is too late now to ask you to return and resume the conditions just as they existed before I sent you away, but I may express the hope that you will be near us, for I find that in your absence I have not half the boasted courage I have credited myself with.”
Reginald and his father each arrived at the Fells as soon as possible after they were informed of the accident.
Darkness had fallen by the time the household had settled down to routine affairs.
Two nurses, hastily summoned from the city, were in attendance upon the mistress of the Fells; old Peter, the master, had sought his study, as he called it, a small room which he had caused to be fitted for his sole use and which contained merely a desk, his chair, and a table and book-case. Beside him was his inevitable pot of coffee, which was always near him when he spent an evening at home.
Reginald had gone to his own rooms also, and disappeared utterly from view, but it was supposable that he was reading, and that he also had his pot of coffee near him. This pot-of-coffee habit affected father and son alike, and had extended to the servants, for the coffee was the famous Uarapam brand, which, when properly made, is richer and better than wine.