Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/144

 and read by Mrs. Dorrance within the hour.

Lily Trevelyan hurried back again to the wireless house. How foolish she had been not to act sooner and stop Micky before the damage had been done. Now it was probably too late.

She found him playing shuffle-board with the little hunchback who, used to kindness from all the world, greeted her with a smile, but she glanced at him quite coldly and to his surprise addressed herself to Micky with an imperative, “I must speak with you at once. You ’ll find me at the stern.” And Micky, yielding the game by default, promised shortly to return, quite to the satisfaction of his cheerful little friend, who regarded him with awe and admiration and thought him the most wonderful person on the seven seas.

Micky found Mrs. Trevelyan awaiting him on the bench where he had sat and watched Cloud's colorless face the night before, and her face, too, was pale and her chin quivered, and her hands in their fresh white kid gloves clasped and unclasped themselves in her lap, as she turned to him and asked with unconcealed anxiety: