Miss Latimer and Tom strove to soothe her by assuring her that naturally Mrs. Grant was as anxious as herself. Perhaps she wanted to seek further information about the Slains Castle, or possibly to consult with Lucy as to whether there were joint steps that they might take in search of news. Lucy was not readily pacified. Her first fear had been that Mrs. Grant had had private word of the loss of the ship and her passenger and crew, and that she kindly wished to communicate this news to Lucy personally. It was comparatively easy to persuade her that this was most unlikely. Her next misgiving was more difficult to dislodge. It was that Mrs. Grant had at last heard from her husband with some bad news of Charlie—a private matter with which, of course, owners and underwriters could have nothing to do. This foreboding could only be allayed by Mrs. Grant herself.
The north train arrived so early at the terminus not far from Pelham Street that Mrs. Challoner and Tom were able to go and meet the traveller before they were respectively due at the Institute and the office. They had breakfast (as indeed they often did) by gaslight, and then hurried off, Lucy taking Hugh with them. Lucy could not bear him to be out of her sight now for one moment more than was necessary, and Hugh himself begged to be taken. Miss Latimer had not yet come downstairs when they departed, but Clementina protested that “the precious darling” might well be left with her—her work was so well in hand that she need do nothing but amuse him—it was a pity he had even been roused up when he might have had another hour’s sweet sleep, and she wondered his ma wasn’t afraid to take him out when the morning was so dull and raw, an argument which would have overcome Lucy but for Hugh’s plucking at her gown and pleading, “Take me with you, mamma, take me with you.”
It was no distracted weeping woman who descended from the through train. Mrs. Grant came out briskly, and looking round at once recognised the group awaiting her, though she had never before seen more of them than a photograph of Lucy. The worthy lady had travelled with plenty of comfortable wraps and a hamper of home-made food. It gave Lucy some reassurance to note this practical attention to creature necessities. She could scarcely realise that the sailor’s wife, a resident in a seaport town, had already stood so often, for herself and for others, in catastrophes of life and death, hope and despair, that she had learned that our bodies require adequate support and consolation if they are, ably and long, to serve and second our spiritual nature, above all our powers of endurance and initiative.
“I’ve got no news for you, neither good nor bad,” she said promptly. “If aught has happened to your husband it has happened to my good man too. But it’s my private belief that the office folks here know a little more than they will admit. I got a letter from them yesterday afternoon saying that they know nothing at all, and I disbelieve that so much that it was this very letter which made me start off here straightway. If they do know anything I’ll manage to get it out of them.
“I don’t imagine they know much,” she hurried on, noting the whiteness of Lucy’s face. “If they knew much we should hear fast enough, never you fear. But whatever they know, little or much, I’ll know too, before I go home!”
As she spoke, the cab drew up at the Challoners’ house. In the dining-room the lamps were still alight, revealing the bounteous breakfast-table which Clementina had spread after removing the impromptu cups of tea which Lucy and Tom had hastily snatched before going out. But as Tom opened the hall door with his latchkey he was met by a pungent odour not given off by toast and ham.
“An escape of gas!” he cried.
(To be continued.)