CHAPTER IV.
CORONA COMES.
When Nurse Branscome reached the docks and inquired at what hour the _Carnatic_ might be expected, the gatekeeper pointed across a maze of dock-basins, wharves, tramway-lines, to a far quay where the great steamship lay already berthed.
"She've broken her record by five hours and some minutes," he explained.

"See that train just pulling out of the station?
That carries her mails." Nurse Branscome--a practical little woman with shrewd grey eyes-- neither fussed over the news nor showed any sign of that haste which is ill speed.

Scanning the distant vessel, she begged to be told the shortest way alongside, and noted the gatekeeper's instructions very deliberately, nodding her head.

They were intricate.

At the close she thanked him and started, still without appearance of hurry, and reached the _Carnatic_ without a mistake.