La Fleur drew a wallet from her pocket.  “I will pay you,” she said; “but if there is an answer you should take it back with you.  Can’t you wait a bit?”

“No,” said the boy, “I can’t.  I shall be away from the office too long as it is.”

La Fleur was in a quandary; there was no one at home but herself; a telegram is always important; very likely an immediate answer was required; and here was an opportunity to send one.  If the message were from his sister, there might be something which she could answer.  At any rate, it was an affair that must not be neglected, and Mr. Haverley had gone off with his fishing-rod, and no one knew when he would get back.

“Wait one minute,” she said to the boy, and she hurried into the kitchen with the telegram.  She put on her spectacles and looked at it; the envelope was very slightly fastened.  No doubt this was something that needed attention, and the boy would not wait.  Telegrams were not like private letters, anyway, and she would take the risk.  So she opened the envelope without tearing it, and read the message.  First she was frightened, and then she was puzzled.

“Well, I can’t answer that,” she said, “and I suppose he will go as soon as he gets it.”

She laid the telegram on the kitchen table and went out to the impatient boy, and told him there was no answer.  Whereupon he departed at the top of his pony’s speed.

La Fleur returned to the kitchen and reread the telegram.  The signature was not very legible, and in her first hasty reading she had not made it out, but now she deciphered it.

“Panney!” she exclaimed, “R.  Panney!  I believe it is from that tricky old woman!” And with her elbows on the table she gave herself up to the study of the telegram.  “I never saw anything like it,” she thought.  “It looks exactly as if she wanted to frighten him without telling him what has happened.  It could not be worse than it is, even if his sister is dead, and if that were so, anybody would telegraph that she was very ill, so as not to let it come on him too sudden.  Nothing can be more dreadful than what he’ll think when he reads this.  One thing is certain:  she meant him to go when he got it.  Yes, indeed!” And a smile came upon her face as she thought.  “She wants him there; that is as plain as daylight.”

At this moment a step was heard outside, and the telegram was slipped into the table drawer.  La Fleur arose and approached the open door; there she saw Phoebe.

“How d’ye do, ma’am?” said that individual.  “Do let me come in an’ sit down, for I’m nearly tired to death, an’ so cross that I’d like to fight a cat.”

“What has happened to you?” asked La Fleur, when she and her visitor had seated themselves.

“Nothin’,” replied Phoebe, “except that I’ve been sent on a fool’s errand, an’ made to walk all the way from Thorbury, here, an’ a longer an’ a dirtier an’ a rockier road I never went over.  I thought two or three times that I should just drop.  If I’d knowed how stiff my j’ints would be, I wouldn’t ‘a’ come, no matter what she said.”