Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/128

This page has been validated.

Tales of the City Room

she was staying and left her at the door of her room. He was glad to see that there was a bright fire burning in it, and that the lamps were lit and the atmosphere was warm and cosey. He did not know that after he had gone she turned out the lights and knelt down by the window with her forehead against the cool pane, her eyes seeing only the gleam of eloquent tombstones standing thickly in the Christmas snow of the cemetery where John and her heart were buried. It would not have especially interested him if he had known. Unlike Mrs. Ogilvie, the sexton was used to grief.


The city editor had received a little note from Mrs. Ogilvie, begging him to let her work on without interruption, "for work," she ended, "will be my only refuge now." He had sent her several assignments with journalistic promptness, and with a letter full of almost human sympathy. He thought of her suddenly one evening as he looked at the head of her arch-enemy, Hunt, the copy-reader, bent over a story of hers which he had given him to rewrite. "We want good

116