always break the points of the pencils hanging from
strings in the telegraph-offices? Surely it is possible to write a
telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that
condition, for the next person in a hurry.

She flew from compartment to compartment, and at last produced her own
pencil, and wrote her telegram in the final section of the row,
independent of official broken points.

"_Do not fly to-day. Come to me. I want you._

"_Christobel._"

She addressed it to the hotel from which he had telegraphed on the
previous day; but added to the address: "If not there, send immediately
to aviation sheds." She had no idea what to call the places, but this
sounded well, and seemed an intuition, or an unconscious recollection
of some remark of the Boy's.

She handed it over the counter. "Please see that it goes through at
once," she said.

The clerk knew her. "Yes, Miss Charteris," he replied. He began
reading the message aloud, but almost immediately stopped, and checked
the words off silently. He glanced at the clock. "It should be there
before noon, Miss Charteris," he said.

He did not look at her, as he passed her the stamps. He had long
thought her one of the finest women who stepped in and out of the
post-office. He had never expected to see her hands tremble. And
fancy _any_ woman--even _she_--being able to tell Guy Chelsea not to
fly! He had a bet on, about that flight, with an enthusiastic backer
of Chelsea's. He was glad he had taken the odds against its coming
off, before seeing this wire. But--after all! It is easy enough to
_ask_ a chap not to fly; but----

He took up a copy of the _Daily Mirror_, and looked at the brave
smiling face. "I jolly well mean to do it!" the young aeronaut seemed
to be saying. The clerk laughed, and shook his head. "Hurry up that
wire," he called to the operator. Then he jingled the loose change in
his pockets. "I wonder," he said.

* * * * *

During the hours which followed, Christobel Charteris knew suspense.

Perhaps that strong, self-contained nature could never have fully
sounded the depths of its own surrender, without those hours of
uncertainty, when nothing stood between her and the man she loved, but
the possibility that her telegram would fail to reach him; that he
would carry out his dangerous flight; that disaster and death would
overtake him and wrest him from her, and that he would die--Guy C