"When did this come?" asked Claudia eagerly.
"A very few moments after you left," said Aunt Jane. "Of course, if you
had been here, you might just have caught the eight o'clock train--very
late, my dear, for you to go by, but with your father so ill----" And
Aunt Jane wiped a tear away.
Claudia also wept.
"Can nothing be done to-night?" she presently cried. "_Must_ I wait till
to-morrow? He may be----" But she did not like to finish the sentence.
Aunt Ruth had risen to the occasion; she was already adjusting her
spectacles with trembling hands in order to explore the _A B C
Timetable_. A very brief examination of the book showed that Claudia
could not get home that night. They could only wait until morning.
Claudia spent a sleepless night. She had come up to London to find a
mission in life. The first great sorrow had fallen upon her home in her
absence, and by an inexcusable preoccupation she had perhaps made it
impossible to reach home before her father's death.
She knew that pneumonia often claimed its victims swiftly; she might
reach home too late.
Her father had been good to her in his own rather stern way. He was not
a small, weak, or peevish character. To have helped him in sickness
would have seemed a pleasant duty even to Claudia, who had contrived to
overlook her mother's frail health. And others were serving him--that
weak mother; Pinsett, too; and perhaps a hired nurse.
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