Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/124

 you all day long, but you have been going so constantly that we could not find you."

In after years Mrs. Ogilvie recalled every small detail of the ride on that cold December evening. It was snowing slightly, and the buildings they passed looked strangely unfamiliar through the white mist. The street sounds and the cries of the newsboys seemed to come to her ears from a great distance. She was dimly conscious of Miss Herrick's words. As one in a dream she listened to the story of the falling of the safe, the injury of her husband, and his removal to the hospital. The knowledge that she had ridden past his unconscious form, leaving him to be cared for by strangers, pierced her numbed consciousness like a knife. The horror of it shocked her into speech at last.

"Is he dead?" she asked, and then, as Miss Herrick tried to answer, the strained voice said from the darkness, "Never mind, I understand," and the two women rode on in silence.

There was nothing to do when they reached the hospital except to give instructions as to