The woman hesitated.
"Tell me!" demanded Ernestine. "I will not be treated like that!"
"Dr. Parkman wants you to come home," the woman said, not looking
Ernestine in the face.
"Why?—Karl?"—she caught roughly at the other woman's arm.
She knew then that she could not temporise nor modify. "Dr. Hubers was taken sick yesterday. He was to have an operation. The telegram should have been delivered last night."
She thought Ernestine was going to fall—she swayed so, her face went so colourless, her hands so cold. But she did not fall. "That—is all you know?"—it came in hoarse, broken whisper.
And when the woman answered, yes, Ernestine started, running, for the house.
CHAPTER XXXV
"OH, HURRY—HURRY!"
That train!—She would go mad if it kept stopping like that. She kept leaning forward in her seat, every muscle tense, fairly pushing the train on with every nerve that was in her. Never once did she relax—on—on—it must go on! She would make it go faster! When it stopped she clenched her hands, her nails digging into the flesh—and then when it started again that same feeling that she, from within herself, must push it on. At times she looked from the window. Now this field was past—they were so much nearer. Soon they would be over there where the track curved—that was a long way ahead. They were going faster now. She would lean forward again—pushing on, trying through the straining of her own nerves to make the train go faster.