On the platform outside stood Mr. Dalton and Freddy,
looking anxiously at the passengers as they filed out from each exit.
Freddy saw me first and cried out impulsively. "Here she is!"
Mr. Dalton turned quickly around and hurried towards me.
"What is the news?" I asked, studying both their faces. "Is he dead?"
"No Amey," Mr. Dalton answered with a voice of deep sympathy, "it is
not so bad as that, though he is very ill indeed!"
"Thank God!" I muttered, "I shall see him and speak to him then after
all."
I got into the carriage with them and drove towards home. Mr. Dalton
did not wait for me to question him, but began to tell me the sad
story of my father's sudden prostration, as soon as the horses' heads
were turned away from the noisy depot.
He had been sitting with him the night before, he said, and they
talked quite cheerfully as usual over their cigars. "He had even been
quizzing me as an old bachelor," Mr. Dalton observed, with a faint
smile, "telling me I had wasted my life in solitude, and all that kind
of thing. It was a fine night and we sat smoking and chatting until it
was quite late, when suddenly I looked at my watch and started up. It
was near midnight."
"Although I have no one to scold me for keeping late hours," said I,
"I must hurry away now; it is time for respectable Christians to be
dreaming."
"And are you a respectable Christian, Dalton?" he interrupted,
playfully.
"Well I might be worse," said I.
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