Page:Lord of the World - Benson - 1908.djvu/47

 knew quite well what that meant, for he remembered one such accident ten years before, just after the law forbidding private volors had been passed. It meant that every living creature in it was killed and probably many more in the place where it fell—and what then? The message was clear enough; she would certainly be in the square at that time.

He sent a desperate wire to her aunt asking for news; and sat, shaking in his chair, awaiting the answer. His mother sat by him.

"Please God—" she sobbed out once, and stopped confounded as he turned on her.

But Fate was merciful, and three minutes before Mr. Phillips toiled up the path with the answer, Mabel herself came into the room, rather pale and smiling.

"Christ!" cried Oliver, and gave one huge sob as he sprang up.

She had not a great deal to tell him. There was no explanation of the disaster published as yet; it seemed that the wings on one side had simply ceased to work.

She described the shadow, the hiss of sound, and the crash. Then she stopped.

"Well, my dear?" said her husband, still rather white beneath the eyes as he sat close to her patting her hand.

"There was a priest there," said Mabel. "I saw him before, at the station."

Oliver gave a little hysterical snort of laughter.

"He was on his knees at once," she said, "with his crucifix, even before the doctors came. My dear, do people really believe all that?"

"Why, they think they do," said her husband.