“Yes?”
“I am sent here—”
He stopped again. His wandering eyes looked down at the mat, and his restless hands wrung his cap harder and harder. He moistened his dry lips, and tried once more.
“I am sent here on a very serious errand.”
“Serious to me?”
“Serious to all in this house.”
Miss Garth took one step nearer to him—took one steady look at his face. She turned cold in the summer heat. “Stop!” she said, with a sudden distrust, and glanced aside anxiously at the door of the morning-room. It was safely closed. “Tell me the worst; and don’t speak loud. There has been an accident. Where?”
“On the railway. Close to Grailsea Station.”
“The up-train to London?”
“No: the down-train at one-fifty—”