“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.”
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.
