Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/289

 "O," said Kit.

"Messenger brought it from the Charing Cross, sir."

Christopher opened the note. A few words had been written in haste on the back of a case-sheet, and the sheet folded upon itself.

Christopher slipped the sheet into his pocket, made some excuse to the Sister, and hurried out of the ward.

"Get me a taxi, Carter."

"Right, sir."

"Quick as you can."

He felt cold with the shock of the news, and as the taxi carried him down those streets that were so familiar he sat looking out of the window at the meaningless movement without. What had happened to her? Was she disfigured, crushed, broken, this pretty thing who had held him in her arms? And suddenly his passionate need of her returned, but in the guise of an intolerable tenderness. He, who had seen so many red, torn bodies carried into St. Martha's, shrank from the imaginings of the moment, a vision of a dear thing crushed.

At Charing Cross he asked for the house-surgeon who had scribbled that note, and they met in a corridor outside one of the wards.

"I'm Sorrell of St. Martha's. You sent me that note. What's happened?"

The house-surgeon was a brisk little man with quivering pince-nez.

"Motor bus ran over her. Abdominal,—bleeding, pretty hopeless. Winter has seen her,—but thought she wouldn't stand an op. She asked me"

Kit was very white.

"Conscious?"

"Yes."

"Can I see her?"

"Of course. Relation of yours?"

"Yes. I'm much obliged to you."

The house-surgeon took Kit into one of the surgical wards, spoke to the nurse on duty, and left Kit outside the screens that had been put up round Mary's bed. Those