No one spoke. The crowd pressed closer. Those outside the rail noiselessly mounted the benches and chairs, craning their necks. Every eye was fixed upon her. Slowly and carefully she unrolled the contract, spreading it out before her, picked up a pen from the table, and without a word wrote her name. Then she rose firmly, and walked steadily to the door. Just then a man entered within the rail and took her seat. It was her bondsman, Mr. Crane. XVI. A FRIEND IN NEED Two days after Tom had signed the highway contract, Babcock sat in his private office in New York, opening his mail. In the outside room were half a dozen employees--engineers and others--awaiting their instructions. The fine spring weather had come and work had been started in every direction, including the second section of the sea-wall at the depot, where the divers were preparing the bottom for the layers of concrete. Tom's carts had hauled the stone. Tucked into the pile of letters heaped before him, Babcock's quick eye caught the corner of a telegram. 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. I've been hurted before, but not so bad as this. I wouldn't have troubled ye, but Mr. Crane has gone West. It was kind and friendly o' ye to come; I knew ye would.” Babcock nodded to Pop, and sank into a chair. The shock of her appearance had completely unnerved him. “Jennie has told me about it,” he said in a tender, sympathetic tone. “Who was mean enough to serve you in this way, Tom?” He called her Tom now, as the others did.