The Quality Of Mercy. William Dean Howells
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to the company. It isn't merely friends and her place in the world; it's money, it's something to eat and wear, it's a roof over her head!"
Wade refused the extreme view portrayed by his friend's figures. "Of course she won't be allowed to come to want."
"Of course. But there's really no measuring the sinuous reach of a disaster like this. It strikes from a coil that seems to involve everything."
"What are you going to do if you get bad news?" asked Wade.
"Ah, I don't know! I must tell her, somehow; unless you think that you—" Wade gave a start which Matt interpreted aright; he laughed nervously. "No, no! It's for me to do it. I know that; unless I can get Louise. Ah! I wonder what that is."
They were walking back toward the station again, and Matt had seen a head and arm projected from the office window, and a hand waving a sheet of yellow paper. It seemed meant for them. They both began to run, and then they checked themselves; and walked as fast as they could.
"We must refer the matter to your sister," said Wade, "and if she thinks best, remember that I shall be quite ready to speak to Miss Northwick. Or, if you think best, I will speak to her without troubling your sister."
"Oh, you're all right, Wade. You needn't have any doubt of that. We'll see. I wonder what there is in that dispatch."
The old station master had come out of the station and was hurrying to meet them with the message, now duly enclosed in an envelope. He gave it to Matt and promptly turned his back on him.
Matt tore it open, and read: "Impossible to identify parlor-car passengers." The telegram was signed "Operator," and was dated at Wellwater. It fell blankly on their tense feeling.
"Well," said Wade, after a long breath. "It isn't the worst."
Matt read it frowningly over several times; then he smiled. "Oh, no. This isn't at all bad. It's nothing. But so far, it's rather comforting. And it's something, even if it is nothing. Well, I suppose I'd better go up to Miss Northwick with it. Wait a moment; I must tell them where to send if anything else comes."
"I'll walk with you as far as St. Michael's," said Wade, when they left the station. "I'm going to my study, there."
They set off together, up the middle of the street, which gave them more elbow-room than the sidewalk narrowly blocked out of the snow.
From a large store as they were passing, a small, dry-looking, pompous little man advanced to the middle of the street, and stopped them. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Wade! I beg your pardon, sir!" he said, nimbly transferring himself, after the quasi self-introduction, from Wade to Matt. "May I ask whether you have received any further information?"
"No," said Matt, amiably, "the only answer we have got is that it is impossible to identify the passengers in the parlor-car."
"Ah, thank you! Thank you very much, sir! I felt sure it couldn't be our Mr. Northwick. Er—good-morning, sir."
He bowed himself away, and went into his store again, and Matt asked Wade, "Who in the world is that?"
"He's a Mr. Gerrish—keeps the large store, there. Rather an unpleasant type."
Matt smiled. "He had the effect of refusing to believe that anything so low as an accident could happen to a man of Northwick's business standing."
"Something of that," Wade assented. "He worships Northwick on the altar of material success."
Matt lifted his head and looked about. "I suppose the whole place is simply seething with curiosity."
Just after they reached the side-street where Wade left him to go down to his church, he met Sue Northwick driving in her sleigh. She was alone, except for the groom impassive in the rumble.
"Have you heard anything?" she asked, sharply.
Matt repeated the dispatch from the operator at Wellwater.
"I knew it was a mistake," she said, with a kind of resolute scorn. "It's perfectly ridiculous! Why should he have been there? I think there ought to be some way of punishing the newspapers for circulating false reports. I've been talking with the man who drove my father to the train yesterday morning, and he says he spoke lately of buying some horses at Springfield. He got several from a farm near there once. I'm going down to telegraph the farmer; I found his name among father's bills. Of course he's there. I've got the dispatch all written out."
"Let me take it back to the station for you, Miss Northwick," said Matt.
"No; get in with me here, and we'll drive down, and then I'll carry you back home. Or! Here, Dennis!" she said to the man in the rumble; and she handed him the telegram. "Take this to the telegraph-office, and tell them to send it up by Simpson the instant the answer comes."
The Irishman said, "Yes, ma'am," and dropped from his perch with the paper in his hand.
"Get in, Mr. Hilary," she said, and after he had mounted she skilfully backed the sleigh and turned the horses homeward. "If I hear nothing from my dispatch, or if I hear wrong, I am going up to Wellwater Junction myself, by the first train. I can't wait any longer. If it's the worst, I want to know the worst."
Matt did not know what to say to her courage. So he said, "Alone?" to gain time.
"Of course! At such a time, I would rather be alone."
At the house Matt found Louise had gone to her room for a moment, and he said he would like to speak with her there.
She was lying on the lounge, when he announced himself, and she said, "Come in," and explained, "I just came off a moment, to give my sympathies a little rest. And then, being up late so many nights this week. What have you heard?"
"Nothing, practically. Louise, how long did you expect to stay?"
"I don't know. I hadn't thought. As long as I'm needed, I suppose. Why? Must you go back?"
"No—not exactly."
"Not exactly? What are you driving at?"
"Why, there's nothing to be found out by telegraphing. Some one must go up to the place where the accident happened. She sees that, and she wants to go. She can't realize at all what it means to go there. Suppose she could manage the journey, going alone, and all that; what could she do after she got there? How could she go and look up the place of the accident, and satisfy herself whether her father was—"
"Matt!" shrieked his sister. "If you go on, you will drive me wild. She mustn't go; that's all there is of it. You mustn't think of letting her go." She sat up on the lounge in expression of her resolution on this point. "She must send somebody—some of their men. She mustn't go. It's too hideous!"
"No," said Matt, thoughtfully. "I shall go."
"You!"
"Why not? I can be at the place by four or five in the morning, and I can ascertain all the facts, and be able to relieve this terrible suspense for her."
"For both of them," suggested Louise. "It must be quite as bad for that poor, sick old maid."
"Why, of course," said Matt, and he felt so much ashamed of having left her out of the account that he added, "I dare say it's even worse for her. She's seen enough of life to realize it more."
"Sue was his favorite, though," Louise returned. "Of course you must go, Matt. You couldn't do less! It's magnificent of you. Have you told her, yet, that you would go?"
"Not yet. I thought I would talk it over with you, first."
"Oh, I approve of it. It's the only thing to do. And I had better stay here till you come back—"
"Why, no; I'm not sure." He came a little nearer and dropped his voice. "You'd better know the whole trouble, Louise. There's great trouble for them whether he's dead or alive. There's something wrong in his accounts with the company, and if he was on that train he was running away to Canada to escape arrest."