A Woman of Yesterday

by Caroline Atwater Mason

Within was warmth and luxury and protection, and yet Gertrude’s heart leaped with a strong passion of desire to forego all this and take Anna Mallison’s place, that so she might start on that long journey which should bring her, at its end, to the side of Keith Burgess.

Small, unseen tragedies in women’s lives such as this, never once, perhaps, expressed, and never forgotten, work out the heroic hypocrisies which women learn, since such is their allotted part.

“You might have known better than to offer money to that girl,” Oliver’s high, shrill voice behind Gertrude said. “She’s as confoundedly proud as all the other saints. But she’ll have to come down yet. We shall see some day.”

Thus unpleasantly interrupted in her reverie, Gertrude rose impatiently, and left the room.

It was eight o’clock that evening when Anna reached Boston. Dismayed by the small remainder of money left her after her railway ticket was bought, she had not dared to spend anything for food through all the day, and had tried to think the cold, dry bread, a few slices of which she had put into her satchel, was sufficient for her needs.

In Boston a change of stations made a cab a necessity if she would not lose the Portland train, and this she must not do, since she had telegraphed Keith from Burlington that she would be with him in the morning. Anna alighted at the station of the Maine Railroad and heard the cabman say that his fee was two dollars with a sensation hardly less than terror. She paid him without a word, then entering the station, sat down in the glare of light amid the confusion of the moving crowd, and looked into her poor little purse, a sharp contraction at her throat as she counted, and found less than three dollars left.

The train would leave in fifteen minutes. Anna went with as brave a face as she could manage, to the office, and asked what was the fare to Portland. The curt reply of the agent proved the glaring insufficiency of her small remaining store. Trembling with weakness and dismay, Anna turned back to her place and sat down, closing her eyes while she prayed. She had friends in missionary circles in Boston, who would gladly have lent her money, but time failed to seek them out. She thought, as she prayed, of the money which Gertrude Ingraham had proffered in the morning, and, humbled, asked forgiveness for the ignorance and pride which had led her to reject it. The thought of Keith watching, perhaps in vain, for her coming in his loneliness and great need, perhaps in his extremity, overwhelmed her with pity and penitence. Having prayed for forgiveness and for guidance, and for a way out, and a way to Keith that night, she opened her eyes, astonished for the moment at the harsh light and the motley scene about her, her actual surroundings having been for the time forgotten in the complete abstraction of her mind. She gazed for a few moments languidly before her, her face so colourless and sorrowful that many persons who passed her looked back at her in curiosity and concern. Presently the space before her became clear; there was a pause in the fluctuating course of passers-by, and nothing interposed, for the instant, between her and the window of the ticket office.

An elderly gentleman in a long travelling cloak and silk hat, carrying a snug and shiny travelling bag, came up to the window with the confident and assured bearing of the experienced traveller. Anna heard him ask for a ticket to Portland. She recognized him at once, for it was Dr. Durham, the missionary secretary who had once been her father’s guest.

When he turned from the window, the doctor found the pale, quiet girl in black standing just behind him; she spoke to him with a radiant light in her face, such as he had never met before. To herself, Anna was saying with a sense of exquisite joy in her heart, “God is near,” feeling herself close touched by the Almightiness. To her father’s friend she told her story and her need in few words, without hesitation or doubt, declaring, necessarily, her engagement to Keith Burgess, and the fact that she was hastening to reach him on account of his serious illness.

“Amazing, my dear,” exclaimed Dr. Durham, taking off his hat and wiping the large shining baldness of his head, “amazing indeed! I am myself on my way to Burgess, and we can make the journey together. Poor fellow! It is a sad case. I had a telegram yesterday, but it was impossible to start until to-night. It seems he has had a hemorrhage. But we will talk all this over on the way,” and the good old gentleman made haste to buy Anna’s ticket, which he said it was only the part of the Society to do, and she must never mention it again. This done, they hastened on together to the train.