It read as follows:--
Mother hurt. Wants you immediately. Please come.
JENNIE GROGAN.
For an instant he sat motionless, gazing at the yellow slip. Then
he sprang to his feet. Thrusting his unopened correspondence into
his pocket, he gave a few hurried instructions to his men and
started for the ferry. Once on the boat, he began pacing the
deck. "Tom hurt!" he repeated to himself. "Tom hurt?
How--when--what could have hurt her?" He had seen her at the
sea-wall, only three days before, rosy-cheeked, magnificent in
health and strength. What had happened? At the St. George
landing he jumped into a hack, hurrying the cabman.
Jennie was watching for him at the garden gate. She said her
mother was in the sitting-room, and Gran'pop was with her. As
they walked up the path she recounted rapidly the events of the
past two days.
Tom was on the lounge by the window, under the flowering plants,
when Babcock entered. She was apparently asleep. Across her
forehead, covering the temples, two narrow bandages bound up her
wound. At Babcock's step she opened her eyes, her bruised,
discolored face breaking into a smile. Then, noting his evident
anxiety, she threw the shawl from her shoulders and sat up.
"No, don't look so. It's nothin'; I'll be all right in a day or
two.
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