Cally was alone in the house.  And it was good to be alone.

There whizzed up, from the opposite direction, yet another car, jerking to a standstill at the door.  It caught the girl’s notice; her vague thought was that it was William, come a little early.  But she saw at once that this was a strange vehicle, a hired one by the look of it, and consciousness dreamed out of her eyes again....

The tide of her being pulsed strong within her now.  All day her strange feeling was as if an enveloping shell had, somewhere lately, been chipped from about her, revealing to her half-startled gaze a horizon far wider than any guessed before.  By the new summonings that made music in her heart, by these undreamed aspirations and reaching affections, there was the thrilling seeming that always heretofore she had lived in some dull half-deadness.  And she could not doubt that this port where she had arrived at last was no other than the gate of Life....

“Why, that’s Chas Cooney!” said Cally, suddenly, gazing down.

From the cab below there had stepped a tall young man, out upon her sidewalk.  She recognized her cousin with instant surprise; and consciousness, returning to her again, set a little frown between her level brows.  Chas made her think at once of the Works.  How was it that he, so busy that he could not even stop for dinner, came driving up here in the middle of the afternoon?  Above all, who was it that he was helping, so slowly and carefully, from his hired car?

The girl gazed with growing tensity; her hat-brim pressed the window.  The downward view was unimpeded, all clear; only, things moved so slowly.  However, a little at a time, the second person in the car came emerging into the sunshine.

And Cally’s heart lifted with an appalling wrench as she saw that it was her father.

There had been an accident at the Works:  that was clear in one eye-sweep.  Her father had been hurt.  He was bareheaded; a long splotch ran up his cheek, into his hair.  He was dragging over the sidewalk, leaning heavily upon Chas’s arm.  One of his own arms hung unnaturally still at his side.  More horrible than any of these things was his face, so ghastly green in the light.

And in the watcher at the window, life shocked instantly to death.  For in the flash in which she saw her father’s face, she knew.  No need of speech; no more news to break.  Had she not felt that something terrible would happen at the Works some day?  There had happened a thing more terrible than all her nightmares had devised....

She did not remember going downstairs at all.  But she must have gone down very fast, for when she opened the door the two men were just stepping into the vestibule, Chas’s hand reaching out toward the bell....

One look went between her and papa.  Did he see death in her face?

“You heard ...” he said, standing there, his voice so curious.  And she could have screamed for that look in his eyes.