"Telephone, Mlle. Angélique!" cried Devery.
"Would you mind asking who? I’ve just got this thing pinned."
"It’s Mrs. Geraldine," Devery called. "Can’t you come?"
Angelica’s heart stood still.
"_This_ is it!" she thought. "Now it’s come!"
She went with leaden feet to the telephone in the back room, and sat
down before it. She stared at the instrument for an instant in horror.
What was it about to reveal?
She took up the receiver.
"Yes!" she said. "Is this you, Mrs. Geraldine?"
"Can you come to see me?" said that well-known voice. "There’s
something----”
"_Why?_" she cried. "What is it? Is anything wrong?"
"The baby’s quite well; but there’s a piece of news you ought to know."
"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh, tell me! What?"
"Don’t lose your head, Angelica; but come when you can. I’ll be in all
the afternoon. And don’t worry. It’s only that I think you ought to know
before all the others."
She didn’t wait to hear the rest. She left the telephone and turned to
her friends a distracted and blanched face.
"I’ve got to go!" she said.
"Is anything wrong?" asked Sillon kindly, alarmed by her look.
"Yes! I’ve got to go!"
"Can’t I go with you?"
"No, no, no!"
Angelica was pinning on her hat, without even a glance in the mirror,
and was starting out when Devery stopped her.
"Your bag!" she said. "Or are you coming back to-day?"
"Never!" she cried. "Never!"
They stood together watching her go.
"Poor kid!" said Devery. "It must be something _very_ wrong!"
Angelica was out of sight, hurrying along the street, trembling with
eagerness to embrace this anguish, to get it over, to be done with her
torment.
She rang Polly’s bell, and Polly herself admitted her visitor. She
looked ill and haggard, with eyes heavy and dull, and reddened with
sleeplessness--or was it with tears?
"Come in," she said pleasantly. "Sit down, Angelica. Will you have a cup
of tea?"
"Oh, _no_!" she cried. "Hurry up and tell me! They all know it? Eddie’s
written! Oh, Mrs. Geraldine, I knew right away! Eddie’s written to say
that Vincent’s told him. Oh, my God! He said he would, and he has!
That’s what he went for. Oh, my God! All my life ruined! Oh, Mrs.
Geraldine!"
"My dear, try to calm yourself," said Polly. "There--sit down. You’re
making yourself ill. Vincent hasn’t told any one. He never will,
Angelica."
"He said he would!"
"He never will. He’s dead."
Her voice broke in a faint sob.
"_Dead?_" cried Angelica. "Vincent? In the war?"
"The transport he was on, struck a mine."
"Then he never got there? He never told Eddie?"
"No."
"Oh, Mrs. Geraldine!" she cried. "Then I’m _safe_!"
Polly turned away.
"Don’t you feel _sorry_?" she asked. "He was very young to die."
Angelica shook her head.
"No, I can’t," she said; "not just now. I can’t feel anything but
glad."