Then, shouting to the driver: “Union Station! Go like Hell!” Conover was in the carriage. Caine, all at a loss, had barely time to scramble in after him before Caleb had slammed shut the door. The horses were off at full speed; the wheels dashing a cascade of mud blotches through the vehicle’s lowered sash. “What is the matter?” insisted Caine, as Conover huddled--inert, bulky, wordless--in one corner; “whom are you to meet at the station? I thought all the Assemblymen--” “I’m goin’ to catch the 9.32 to Granite if we can make it,” growled Conover. “Shut up an’ let me think. Here!” He shoved the tight-squeezed ball of yellow paper toward Caine. The latter, as he took the telegram, noted the sudden clammy chill of the Fighter’s hand and saw that his lips were dry as a fever-patient’s. Never before had Caine seen him nervous, and he turned with redoubled interest to the unfolding of the crumpled dispatch. It bore a woman’s signature--that of Desirée’s aunt--and Caine, marveling, ran his eyes over the body of the message: “_Dey taken dangerously ill last night. Delirious. Calls for you all time. Come if can._” The banal wording, the crude phrasing for the sake of saving expense--every detail of the telegram jarred upon Caine’s fastidious taste. But a new thought made him turn, incredulous, upon Conover. “I’m awfully, _awfully_ sorry to hear this,” said he. “But--but of course you can’t think of leaving everything at the State House to-day and--” “State House?” muttered Conover, dully. “Don’t you understand?” cried Caine, gripping the dazed, limp giant by the shoulder and trying to shake him back to his senses. “Don’t you understand the Steeloid fight will be on in an hour or so? You can’t desert us and run off to Granite like this.” “Take your hands off me,” mumbled Conover, pettishly. “Lord, how I hate to be pawed! Can’t that driver go any faster’n a hearse? I’ll miss the--” “_Conover!_” fairly shouted Caine. “Brace up, man! What ails you? I never saw you like this. Have you lost your head? The Steeloid fight comes up, in the Assembly, to-day. Your fortune and mine hang on your killing the Starke bill. You say, yourself, that unless you’re at the State House we’ll lose. You _can’t_ get to Granite and back before the session closes. If--” “I’m not comin’ back,” said Caleb in utter weariness. “She’s--Dey’s sick. ‘Dangerously ill,’ the tel’gram said. An’ she’s callin’ all the time for _me_. If the 9.32 is on time I ought to be to her house by noon. Maybe before.” “Look here, old man!” pleaded Caine. “Of course I’m sorrier about Miss Shevlin than I can say. But she will have the best possible medical care. And you can’t help her by rushing off like this. Think of all that depends on your being at the State House, to-day. You can catch the six o’clock train for Granite this evening, just as well. For all our sakes, don’t desert us now! If Blacarda gets the Starke bill through the Assembly--”