At Nina's was a smaller but similar group. All over the village at that
time in the evening were similar groups, gathered around flowers and
candles; neatly served, cheerful and undramatic groups, with the house
doors closed and dogs waiting patiently outside in the long spring
twilight.
Elizabeth was watching Nina. Just so, she was deciding, would she some
day preside at her own board. Perhaps before so very long, too. A little
separation, letters to watch for and answer, and then-The telephone rang, and Leslie answered it. He did not come back;
instead they heard the house door close, and soon after the rumble of
the car as it left the garage. It stopped at the door, and Leslie came
in.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I guess Elizabeth will have to go home. You'd
better come along, Nina."
"What is it? Is somebody sick?" Elizabeth gasped.
"Jim's been in an automobile accident. Steady now, Elizabeth! He's hurt,
but he's going to be all right."
The Wheeler house, when they got there, was brightly lighted. Annie was
crying in the hall, and in the living-room Mrs. Sayre stood alone, a
strange figure in a gaudy dress, but with her face strong and calm.
"They've gone to the hospital in my car," she said. "They'll be there
now any minute, and Mr. Oglethorpe will telephone at once. You are to
wait before starting in."
They all knew what that meant. It might be too late to start in. Nina
was crying hysterically, but Elizabeth could not cry. She stood dry-eyed
by the telephone, listening to Mrs. Sayre and Leslie, but hardly hearing
them. They had got Dick Livingstone and he had gone on in. Mrs. Sayre
was afraid it had been one of Wallie's cars. She had begged Wallie to
tell Jim to be careful in it. It had too much speed.
The telephone rang and Leslie took the receiver and pushed Elizabeth
gently aside. He listened for a moment.
"Very well," he said. Then he hung up and stood still before he turned
around: "It isn't very good news," he said. "I wish I could--Elizabeth!"
Elizabeth had crumpled up in a small heap on the floor.
All through the long night that followed, with the movement of feet
through the halls, with her mother's door closing and the ghastly
silence that followed it, with the dawn that came through the windows,
the dawn that to Jim meant not a new day, but a new life beyond their
living touch, all through the night Elizabeth was aware of two figures
that came and went. One was Dick, quiet, tender and watchful. And one
was of a heavy woman in a gaudy dress, her face old and weary in the
morning light, who tended her with gentle hands.