“Can you make it?” asked Bennett of the driver, watch in hand.  The time was of the shortest, but the driver put the whip to his horses and, at a run, they reached the railway station a few moments ahead of time.  Bennett told the driver to wait, and while Lloyd remained in her place he bought her ticket for the City.  Then he went to the telegraph office and sent a peremptory despatch to the house on Calumet Square.

A few moments later the train had come and gone, an abrupt eruption of roaring iron and shrieking steam.  Bennett was left on the platform alone, watching it lessen to a smoky blur where the rails converged toward the horizon.  For an instant he stood watching, watching a resistless, iron-hearted force whirling her away, out of his reach, out of his life.  Then he shook himself, turning sharply about.

“Back to the doctor’s house, now,” he commanded the driver; “on the run, you understand.”

But the other protested.  His horses were all but exhausted.  Twice they had covered that distance at top speed and under the whip.  He refused to return.  Bennett took the young man by the arm and lifted him from his seat to the ground.  Then he sprang to his place and lashed the horses to a gallop.

When he arrived at Dr. Pitts’s house he did not stop to tie the horses, but threw the reins over their backs and entered the front hall, out of breath and panting.  But the doctor, during Bennett’s absence, had returned, and it was he who met him half-way up the stairs.

“How is he?” demanded Bennett.  “I have sent for another nurse; she will be out here on the next train.  I wired from the station.”

“The only objection to that,” answered the doctor, looking fixedly at him, “is that it is not necessary.  Mr. Ferriss has just died.”

VII.

Throughout her ride from Medford to the City it was impossible for Lloyd, so great was the confusion in her mind, to think connectedly.  She had been so fiercely shocked, so violently shattered and weakened, that for a time she lacked the power and even the desire to collect and to concentrate her scattering thoughts.  For the time being she felt, but only dimly, that a great blow had fallen, that a great calamity had overwhelmed her, but so extraordinary was the condition of her mind that more than once she found herself calmly awaiting the inevitable moment when the full extent of the catastrophe would burst upon her.  For the moment she was merely tired.  She was willing even to put off this reaction for a while, willing to remain passive and dizzied and stupefied, resigning herself helplessly and supinely to the swift current of events.