“Timmy—­Timmy—­Timmy!” screamed Molly’s heart.  She could not see; she could not think or hear, or taste her breakfast.  Her little boy--her little, helpless, sturdy, confident baby, who had never been frightened, never alone—­never anything but warm and safe and doubly, trebly guarded—­

They were crossing a sickening confusion that was the hotel lobby.  They were moving in a taxicab through bright, hideous streets.  The next thing she knew, Jerry was seating her in a parlor car.

“Yes, I know, dear—­Of course—­Surely!” she said pleasantly and mechanically when he seemed to expect an answer.—­She thought of how he would have come to meet her; of how the little voice always rang out:  “Dere’s my muddy!”

“Raining again!” said Jerry.  “It stopped this morning at two.  Oh, yes, really it did.  We’re almost there now.  Hello!  Here’s the boy with the morning papers.  See, dear, here’s the head-line:  Rain Stops at One-fifty—­”

But Molly had seen another headline—­a big headline that read:  “Loss of Life at Rising Water!  Governess of Jerome Tressady’s Family Swims One Mile to Safety!”—­and she had fainted away.

She was very brave, very reasonable, when consciousness came back, but there could be no more pretence.  She sat in the demoralized little parlor of the Emville Hotel—­waiting for news—­very white, very composed, a terrible look in her eyes.  Jerry came and went constantly; other people constantly came and went.  The flood was falling fast now and barges were being towed down the treacherous waters of Beaver Creek; refugees—­and women and children whom the mere sight of safety and dry land made hysterical again—­were being gathered up.  Emville matrons, just over their own hours of terror, were murmuring about gowns, about beds, about food:  “Lots of room—­ well, thank God for that—­you’re all safe, anyway!” “Yes, indeed; that’s the only thing that counts!” “Well, bless his heart, we’ll tell him some day that when he was a baby—­” Molly caught scraps of their talk, their shaken laughter, their tears; but there was no news of Belle—­of Timmy—­

“Belle is a splendid, strong country girl, you know, dear,” Jerry said.  “Belle would be equal to any emergency!”

“Of course,” Molly heard herself say.

Jerry presently came in from one of his trips to draw a chair close to his wife’s and tell her that he had seen Miss Carter.

“Or, at least, I’ve seen her mother,” said Jerry, laying a restraining hand upon Molly, who sat bolt upright, her breast heaving painfully—­“for she herself is feverish and hysterical, dear.  It seems that she left—­Now, my darling, you must be quiet.”

“I’m all right, Jerry.  Go on!  Go on!”

“She says that Hong and Little Hong managed to get away early in the evening for help.  She didn’t leave until about midnight, and Belle and the boy were all right then—­”

“Oh, my God!” cried poor Molly.