The indefiniteness of this letter troubled Edward.  He was disposed to think that it meant much more than it expressed.  He knew his wife’s excellent constitution so well, and reposed so much trust in her frankness, that he did not believe she was seriously ill; but he did fear that his prolonged absence had tried her cruelly, for he realized that she must have gone through with many a struggle before she could have brought herself to recall him.  While he was debating, still under the spell of business, whether to start for home at once or first to settle some important matters at Denison, a telegraph-boy entered the office of the hotel where he was sitting, and handed a despatch to the clerk.

“For the gentleman at the window,” said the young man.

Edward opened the missive with the calmness of an honest and solvent man, but with a pang of fear for Ellen.  He read as follows: 

“We think you had better return at once. 
BERTHA TERRY.”

For an instant he sat with his brain in a whirl.  Then a curse upon Providence rose to his lips; he repressed it, and began to load himself with reproaches.  A moment before, he had been in the satisfied mood of a man who has his own approbation for work well done.  He now looked upon his course during the past winter with both abhorrence and wonder.  He told himself that it was heartless to have left Ellen at all; to have stayed away for so many months was simply inhuman.  It was all plain enough now; and that he should have been so blind to the truth he could not conceive.  Suddenly he bethought himself that there was yet time to catch the Austin Express for St. Louis, and that if he did not succeed in doing this a whole day would be lost.  He quickly wrote and forwarded a despatch to Bertha, requesting her to telegraph to him at Vinita without reserve, and then, regardless of his unfulfilled engagements, hurried to the station.  He was just in season:  as he stepped upon the platform he heard the whistle of the approaching train.  Once on board, he experienced a momentary sensation of relief:  he was rapidly moving homeward, and at Vinita he would at least be freed from suspense.  He tried to convince himself that the case could not be a serious one.  But if it was?  A terrible fear took possession of him.  He attempted in vain to put it aside.  It rendered it impossible for him to sit down alone with his thoughts for a moment, and he passed away the day in wandering back and forth through the cars, making an effort now and then to get up a conversation with some fellow-passenger, counting the hours before the train would reach Vinita, and constantly execrating himself.

But, Vinita reached, there was no telegram.  The operator thought it must have gone to Vineton, a town far to the southeast, on the Iron Mountain Railway.  He could telegraph for it, of course, he said, and send it on to any given point, but he believed that Edward would get word more quickly by forwarding another message to St. Louis.  He suggested that the reply be sent to Sedalia, where it would undoubtedly be delivered, even at the late hour at which the train would arrive.