Secured herself by that green slip in
her hand against every possible need, she wondered if it were ordained
that the two men whose possession of material resources had molded her
into what she was to-day should lose all, be reduced to the same stress
that had made her an unwilling drudge in her brother's kitchen. Then she
recalled that for Charlie there was an equivalent sum due,--a share like
her own. At the worst, he had the nucleus of another fortune.
Curled among the pillows of her bed that night, she looked over the
evening papers, read with a swift heart-sinking that the Roaring Lake
fire was assuming terrific proportions, that nothing but a deluge of
rain would stay it now. And more significantly, except for a minor blaze
or two, the fire raged almost wholly upon and around the Fyfe block of
limits. She laid aside the papers, switched off the lights, and lay
staring wide-eyed at the dusky ceiling.
At twenty minutes of midnight she was called to the door of her room to
receive a telegram. It was from Linda, and it read:
"Charlie badly hurt. Can you come?"
Stella reached for the telephone receiver. The night clerk at the C.P.R.
depot told her the first train she could take left at six in the
morning. That meant reaching the Springs at nine-thirty. Nine and a half
hours to sit with idle hands, in suspense. She did not knew what tragic
denouement awaited there, what she could do once she reached there. She
knew only that a fever of impatience burned in her.
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