"Is there no—hope?" she asked pleadingly.
The man shook his head.
"None—unless Hinkling can be got here—in time."
She passed on out of the room without a word. There was nothing more to be said. Anyway she was quite beyond words.
Phyllis went straight to her bedroom. She could not go to Monica yet, with the knowledge of what she had just heard. It was dreadful. It seemed utterly, utterly hopeless. Five days. Seven at the most. Seven—and the railroad completely shut down. Monica's life must be sacrificed because some wretched workman was not satisfied, or some equally absurd thing. It was too awful to contemplate.
In the extremity of her grief her thoughts strayed to Frank. It was the natural womanly impulse causing her to turn to the man she loved. As the boy's image rose before her distraught mind she remembered that he belonged to those who had brought this desperate state of things about. And in her moment of realization she cried out her bitterness—
"Oh, Frank, Frank, how could you?"
The words echoed through the silent room, and came back to her with startling effect. She shivered at their sound, and flung herself upon her bed in a passion of grief. She remained there sobbing for many minutes. The strain had been too much for her, and now the hopelessness of it all wrung her heart.
But after a while the storm passed, and she sat up. Then, once more, she abandoned herself to thought. Curiously enough, Frank was still uppermost in her mind. A wild longing, quite impossible to resist, to see him, and tell him of all that had happened, possessed her, and she tried to think where he might be found.
She did not know. She could not think. He was in the neighborhood. That was certain. But where, where? She paced the room puzzling her brains as to how she might find him. Then, quite without realizing her actions, she opened a drawer in her bureau and drew out the riding suit Monica had given her. She had only worn it a few times before Monica had been taken seriously ill. She looked it over. It had been her great pride—once. Its divided skirt and beautiful long coat had been a positive joy.