CHAPTER XVIII

SERIOUSLY WOUNDED

They walked the rest of the distance to the house in absorbed silence,
reading as they went. Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of
amazement.

"I thought this was for me," she said, holding up a letter. "But it
isn't. It's for your mother, Grace. I don't see how I could have made
such a mistake!"

But Grace only heard the first part of Betty's speech. The last of it
passed right over her head.

"A letter for mother?" she cried. "Oh, give it to me, Betty. It may be
from dad. Oh, it is! It is!" she exclaimed, as she saw her father's
familiar writing. "He must have heard about Will. Mother! Mother--" she
broke away from the girls and took the porch steps two at a time, waving
the letter wildly as she went.

"Oh, if it's only good news, if it's only good news!" Betty found
herself saying over and over again as she, with Mollie, followed Grace
into the house.

They found Mrs. Ford in the living room, pale and trembling a little,
holding the envelope in her hand as though she dared not open it. Grace
had collapsed in a chair and was gazing up at her mother with such
agonized pleading in her eyes that the girls could not look at her.

Then very slowly Mrs. Ford tore open the envelope. At the same moment
the girls seemed to sense that they might be in some manner intruding,
and with one accord they moved over to the window and stood looking out.

After a wait that seemed interminable they heard Grace say in a
strained, far-away little voice:

"Mother, what is it? Can't you tell me? I think I'll die if I have to
wait any longer."

"Read it," they heard Mrs. Ford say in a choked voice, as a rustle of
paper told that she had handed the letter to Grace. "I can't tell you
dear. Oh, my boy, my boy!" And she sank down in a chair and covered her
face with her hands.

The girls turned from the window and started to leave the room, for they
felt that the moment was too sacred for even them who were so intensely
interested, to share.

Just as they reached the door they paused, arrested by a cry from
Grace.

"Seriously wounded!" she read in a muffled voice. "Oh, Mother, for all
we know, that may mean Will is--dead!"

They were startled by a muffled sob, and turned in time to see Amy rush
from the room. Poor little Amy! In the excitement and grief of the
moment they had forgotten that she might also be affected by this news
of Will!

Betty and Mollie ran upstairs after her, lea