his hand and leaned a moment
against the mantelpiece. He did not now leave the room. The door-bell
rang.

"Dr. Street," murmured Lloyd.

But what had happened in the City? There in the still dark hours of that
hot summer night an event of national, perhaps even international,
importance had surely transpired. It was in the air--a sense of a Great
Thing come suddenly to a head somewhere in the world. Footsteps sounded
rapidly on the echoing sidewalks. Here and there a street door opened.
From corner to corner, growing swiftly nearer, came the cry of newsboys
chanting extras. A subdued excitement was abroad, finding expression in
a vague murmur, the mingling of many sounds into one huge note--a note
that gradually swelled and grew louder and seemed to be rising from all
corners of the City at once.

There was a step at the sick-room door. Dr. Street? No, Rownie--Rownie
with two telegrams for Lloyd.

Lloyd took them from her, then with a sharp, brusque movement of her
head and suddenly smitten with an idea, turned from them to listen to
the low, swelling murmur of the City. These despatches--no, they were no
"call" for her. She guessed what they might be. Why had they come to her
now? Why was there this sense of some great tidings in the wind? The
same tidings that had come to the world might come to her--in these
despatches. Might it not be so? She caught her breath quickly. The
terror, the fearful anxiety that had haunted and oppressed her for so
long, was it to be lifted now at last? The Enemy that lurked in the dark
corners, ever ready to clutch her, was it to be driven back and away
from her forever? She dared not hope for it. But something was coming to
her; she knew it, she felt it; something was preparing for her, coming
to her swifter with every second--coming, coming, coming from out the
north. She saw Dr. Street in the room, though how and when he had
arrived she could not afterward recall. Her mind was all alert, intent
upon other things, listening, waiting. The surgeon had been leaning over
the bed. Suddenly he straightened up, saying aloud to Campbell:

"Good, good, we're safe. We have pulled through."

Lloyd tore open her telegrams. One was signed "Bennett," the other
"Ferriss."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Campbell.

"Oh," cried Lloyd, a great sob shaking her from head to heel, a smile of
infinite happiness flashing from her face. "Oh--yes, thank God, we--we
_have_ pulled through."

"Am I going t