It was dreadful!  Nobody said a word and Tom laid the telegram right down in his plate, where it immediately began to soak up the dressing of his salad.  He was so white and shaky that Pet looked at him in amazement, and then I am sure she had the good sense to find his hand under the cloth and hold it, for his shoulder hovered against hers and the color came back to his face as he smiled down at her.  I don’t believe I’ll ever get the courage to look at Tom again until he marries Pet, which he’ll do now, I feel sure.

And as for the judge and Ruth Chester, I was glad they were sitting beside each other, for I could avoid that side of the table with my eyes until I had steadied myself a few seconds at least.  The surprise made the others I had been dining seem statues from the stone age, and only Mr. Graves’ fork failed to hang fire.  His appetite is as strong as his nerves and Delia Hawes looked at his composure with the relief plain in her eyes.  Henrietta’s smile in the judge’s direction was doubtful.  But they were not all my lovers and why that awful silence?

I couldn’t say a word, and I am sure I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been for the doctor.  He leaned forward and his deep eyes came out in their wonderful way and seemed to collect every pair of eyes at the table, even the most astounded, as he raised his glass.  We all held our breaths and waited for him to speak.

“No wonder we are all stricken dumb at Mrs. Carter’s telegram,” he said in his deep voice that commands everybody and everything, even the terrors of birth and death.  “The whole town will be paralyzed at the news that its most distinguished citizen is only going to give them two days to get ready to receive him.  I can see the panic the brass band will have now getting the brass shined up, and I want to be the one to tell Mayor Pollard myself, so as to suggest to him to have at least a two-hour speech of welcome to hand out at the train.  We’ll make it one ‘hot time’ for him when he lands in the old town, and here’s to him, God bless him.  Every glass high!” They all drank, and I suppose it helped them.  I wish I could have drained a quart, but I couldn’t swallow a sip, though I did a good stunt of pretending.

[Illustration:  “Every glass high”]

The rest of this evening has paid me off for every sin I have ever committed or am ever going to commit.  Tom took Pet home early and I hope they walked in the moonlight for hours.  Tom is the kind of man that any pretty girl who is loving enough in the moonlight could comfort for anything.  I’m not at all worried about him, but—­

The hour I sat on my front steps and talked to Judge Wade must have brought gray hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them.  Ruth Chester had said good-by with the loveliest haunted look in her great dark eyes and I had felt as if I had killed something that was alive and that I hadn’t killed it enough.  Doctor John had been called from his coffee to a patient and had gone with just a friendly word of good night, and the others had at last left the judge and me alone—­also in the moonlight, which I wished in my heart somebody would put out.