Marjorie wasn't crying then, she felt as if she had no tears left. She shut her teeth together hard, and went out by a side door. This way she could reach the street unobserved, and she walked straight ahead to the railroad station. She had a five-dollar gold piece that Uncle Steve had sent her on Christmas, and that, with a little silver change, she carried in her pocketbook. But she left behind her pearl ring and all the little trinkets or valuables she possessed.
She felt as if her heart had turned to stone. It wasn't so much anger at Mr. and Mrs. Maynard as it was that awful sense of desolation,—as if the world had come to an end.
At one moment she would think she missed King the most; then with the thought of her father, a rush of tears would come; and then her poor little tortured heart would cry out, "Oh, Mother, Mother!"
She knew perfectly well the way to New York, and though the station agent looked at her sharply when she bought a ticket, he said nothing. For Marjorie was a self-possessed little girl, of good manners and quiet air when she chose to be. With her ticket in her hand, she sat down to wait for the train. There were few people in the station at that hour, and no one who knew her.
When the train came puffing in, she went out and took it, in a matter-of-fact way, as if quite accustomed to travelling alone.
Really, she felt very much frightened. She had never been on a train alone before, and the noise of the cars and the bustle of the people, and the shouting of the trainmen made her nervous.
And then, with a fresh flood of woe, the remembrance of why she was going would come over her, and obliterate all other considerations.
For perhaps half an hour she kept the tears back bravely enough; but as she rode on, and realized more and more deeply what it all meant, she could control herself no longer, and burst into a paroxysm of weeping.
She was sitting next the window, and, as there were few passengers, no one was in the seat with her.
But when she raised her head, exhausted by her outburst of tears, a burly red-faced man sat beside her.