There was a step at the sick-room door.  Dr. Street?  No, Rownie—­Rownie with two telegrams for Lloyd.

Lloyd took them from her, then with a sharp, brusque movement of her head and suddenly smitten with an idea, turned from them to listen to the low, swelling murmur of the City.  These despatches—­no, they were no “call” for her.  She guessed what they might be.  Why had they come to her now?  Why was there this sense of some great tidings in the wind?  The same tidings that had come to the world might come to her—­in these despatches.  Might it not be so?  She caught her breath quickly.  The terror, the fearful anxiety that had haunted and oppressed her for so long, was it to be lifted now at last?  The Enemy that lurked in the dark corners, ever ready to clutch her, was it to be driven back and away from her forever?  She dared not hope for it.  But something was coming to her; she knew it, she felt it; something was preparing for her, coming to her swifter with every second—­coming, coming, coming from out the north.  She saw Dr. Street in the room, though how and when he had arrived she could not afterward recall.  Her mind was all alert, intent upon other things, listening, waiting.  The surgeon had been leaning over the bed.  Suddenly he straightened up, saying aloud to Campbell: 

“Good, good, we’re safe.  We have pulled through.”

Lloyd tore open her telegrams.  One was signed “Bennett,” the other “Ferriss.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed Mr. Campbell.

“Oh,” cried Lloyd, a great sob shaking her from head to heel, a smile of infinite happiness flashing from her face.  “Oh—­yes, thank God, we—­we have pulled through.”

“Am I going to get well, am I going to get well, Miss Searight?” Hattie, once more conscious, raised her voice weak and faint.

Lloyd was on her knees beside her, her head bent over her.

“Hush; yes, dear, you are safe.”  Then the royal bronze-red hair bent lower still.  The dull-blue eyes were streaming now, the voice one low quiver of sobs.  Tenderly, gently Lloyd put an arm about the child, her head bending lower and lower.  Her cheek touched Hattie’s.  For a moment the little girl, frail, worn, pitifully wasted, and the strong, vigorous woman, with her imperious will and indomitable purpose, rested their heads upon the same pillow, both broken with suffering, the one of the body, the other of the mind.

“Safe; yes, dear, safe,” whispered Lloyd, her face all but hidden.  “Safe, safe, and saved to me.  Oh, dearest of all the world!”

And then to her ears the murmur of the City seemed to leap suddenly to articulate words, the clanging thunder of the entire nation—­the whole round world thrilling with this great news that had come to it from out the north in the small hours of this hot summer’s night.  And the chanting cries of the street rolled to her like the tremendous diapason of a gigantic organ: 

“Rescued, rescued, rescued!”