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Page 53
"Can you make it?" asked Bennett of the driver, watch in hand. The time
was of the shortest, but the driver put the whip to his horses and, at a
run, they reached the railway station a few moments ahead of time.
Bennett told the driver to wait, and while Lloyd remained in her place
he bought her ticket for the City. Then he went to the telegraph office
and sent a peremptory despatch to the house on Calumet Square.
A few moments later the train had come and gone, an abrupt eruption of
roaring iron and shrieking steam. Bennett was left on the platform
alone, watching it lessen to a smoky blur where the rails converged
toward the horizon. For an instant he stood watching, watching a
resistless, iron-hearted force whirling her away, out of his reach, out
of his life. Then he shook himself, turning sharply about.
"Back to the doctor's house, now," he commanded the driver; "on the run,
you understand."
But the other protested. His horses were all but exhausted. Twice they
had covered that distance at top speed and under the whip. He refused to
return. Bennett took the young man by the arm and lifted him from his
seat to the ground. Then he sprang to his place and lashed the horses to
a gallop.
When he arrived at Dr. Pitts's house he did not stop to tie the horses,
but threw the reins over their backs and entered the front hall, out of
breath and panting. But the doctor, during Bennett's absence, had
returned, and it was he who met him half-way up the stairs.
"How is he?" demanded Bennett. "I have sent for another nurse; she will
be out here on the next train. I wired from the station."
"The only objection to that," answered the doctor, looking fixedly at
him, "is that it is not necessary. Mr. Ferriss has just died."
VII.
Throughout her ride from Medford to the City it was impossible for
Lloyd, so great was the confusion in her mind, to think connectedly. She
had been so fiercely shocked, so violently shattered and weakened, that
for a time she lacked the power and even the desire to collect and to
concentrate her scattering thoughts. For the time being she felt, but
only dimly, that a great blow had fallen, that a great calamity had
overwhelmed her, but so extraordinary was the condition of her mind that
more than once she found herself calmly awaiting the inevitable moment
when the full extent of the catastrophe would burst upon her. For the
moment she was merely tired. She was willing even to put off this
reaction for a while, willing to remain passive and dizzied and
stupefied, resigning herself helplessly and supinely to the swift
current of events.
Yet while that part of her mind which registered the greater, deeper,
and more lasting impressions remained inactive, the smaller faculty,
that took cognisance of the little, minute-to-minute matters, was as
busy and bright as ever. It appeared that the blow had been struck over
this latter faculty, and not, as one so often supposes, through it. She
seemed in that hour to understand the reasonableness of this phenomenon,
that before had always appeared so inexplicable, and saw how great
sorrow as well as great joy strikes only at the greater machinery of the
brain, overpassing and ignoring the little wheels and cogs, that work on
as briskly as ever in storm or calm, being moved only by temporary and
trivial emotions and impressions.
So it was that for upward of an hour while the train carried her swiftly
back to the City, Lloyd sat quietly in her place, watching the landscape
rushing past her and cut into regular divisions by the telegraph poles
like the whirling pictures of a kinetoscope. She noted, and even with
some particularity, the other passengers--a young girl in a smart
tailor-made gown reading a book, cutting the leaves raggedly with a
hairpin; a well-groomed gentleman with a large stomach, who breathed
loudly through his nose; the book agent with his oval boxes of dried
figs and endless thread of talk; a woman with a little boy who wore
spectacles and who was continually making unsteady raids upon the
water-cooler, and the brakeman and train conductor laughing and chatting
in the forward seat.
She took an interest in every unusual feature of the country through
which the train was speeding, and noted each stop or increase of speed.
She found a certain diversion, as she had often done before, in watching
for the mile-posts and in keeping count of the miles. She even asked the
conductor at what time the train would reach the City, and uttered a
little murmur of vexation when she was told that it was a half-hour
late. The next instant she was asking herself why this delay should seem
annoying to her. Then, toward the close of the afternoon, came the City
itself. First a dull-gray smudge on the horizon, then a world of grimy
streets, rows of miserable tenements festooned with rags, then a tunnel
or two, and at length the echoing glass-arched terminal of the station.
Lloyd alighted, and, remembering that the distance was short, walked
steadily toward her destination till the streets and neighbourhood
became familiar. Suddenly she came into the square. Directly opposite
was the massive granite front of the agency. She paused abruptly. She
was returning to the house after abandoning her post. What was she to
say to them, the other women of her profession?
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