“How singular!” said Mrs. Freshet, with a blank stare, and turned at once to continue a conversation on bargains with Mrs. Worthington, while Mrs. Gibbons, trying to make sprightly remarks in response to Mr. Freshet and Mr. Worthington, agonizingly watched the clock. Ten minutes of twelve—five minutes of twelve—she could not have stood it a second longer, when Mr. Worthington rose to hurry them off. The rushing of the elevated train could not keep up with Mrs. Gibbons’ hastening spirit; but somehow, inexplicably, after a while even the rushing stopped—the train halted—went forward a little—and halted again, between stations. “Oh, _what_ is the matter?” said Mrs. Gibbons, as Mr. Worthington returned with several men from investigation. “Oh, nothing to speak of; there’s a fire ahead somewhere, and we’re blocked for a few minutes. Mrs. Gibbons—_Madam_! Pray keep your seat, you can _not_ get out!” “They do say as there’s a family yet in the burning house,” suggested a sympathizing listener. “Naw, they got thim out, but there’s two firemen hurted,” said another. “What is it, Amelia!” Mr. Worthington turned his attention hastily from Mrs. Gibbons to his wife. “Do you feel faint?” “A little,” murmured Mrs. Worthington, reproachfully. Mrs. Gibbons had a sickened feeling. She could have felt faint too, if her husband had been along to sit down by her solicitously, and tell her to lean on him. She would have _liked_ to feel faint. But instead, she was forced, in common decency, to be solicitous too for Mrs. Worthington, although she had begun to hate her. Mr. Worthington looked nervously at his watch until the train started again, and when they got out to walk to the ferry, he hurried his wife along at a pace with which Mrs. Gibbons tried in vain to keep up over the uneven, dirty, dimly lighted pavements in those winding streets near the river. Arnold never let her walk so fast that way; she owned an ankle that had once been sprained, and sometimes now turned under her disastrously. But hurry as she might, they hurried faster, under the impulse of the new fear which made itself felt to her without the need of words. She caught up to the couple, and clutched them as they stood suddenly motionless, inside the ferry-house, facing her. “What do you _stop_ for? Why don’t you go _on_?” she demanded fiercely, although she knew too well what the dread answer must be. The supreme stroke of suburban fate had befallen them. They had missed the last train out! Only the initiated know what this really means. To be cut off inexorably from home, and the children, and the fires, and the incompetent servants or the anxious watchers—it is something subtly feared in every evening journey into town, but only once in a life-time perhaps is it experienced. “We had better go to a hotel,” said Mrs. Worthington, with agitation. “We will _have_ to go to a hotel, Foster.”