"What the devil?" said Hungerford, closing his book.
"He's in some scrape," said Regan ruthfully.
"Oh, Lord, and just at this time, too," said Story.
Stover went rapidly towards the hospital. The girl had been operated on immediately, and the situation was of the utmost seriousness. He had been told to come back at nine. When he arrived he found Muriel Stacey already in the waiting-room, her eyes heavy with frightened weeping. He looked at her curiously. All suggestion of the provoking impertinence and the surface allurement was gone. Under his eyes was nothing but an ignorant boor, stupid and hysterical before the awful fact of death.
"What's the news?" he asked.
"Oh, Mr. Stover, I don't know. I can't get anything out of them," the woman said wildly. "Oh, do you think she's going to die?"
"Of course not," he said gruffly. "See here, where's her family?"
"I don't know."
"Don't they live here?"