"I'll see to it that he ain't got in till you come," pursued Claire's new friend. "The Potter's Field ain't far from the County Buildings, as they call 'em. I s'pose you know how to get to Flatbush?" He scratched his sandy shock of hair for an instant, and told her just what cars to take.
Claire put faith in him. Something made her do so. When the pine box had been carried down stairs, placed inside the dark wagon, and driven away, she went to her own room and made a small, neat brown-paper parcel. Her clothes were few enough, and she left all of these except what seemed to her of vital necessity. "I don't want to look like a tramp," she told herself, with a darksome pleasantry. "I shall not, either. I shall only be a poor, shabby girl with a bundle."
When she emerged from her room her mother met her in the hall. Claire wore her bonnet. Mrs. Twining gave a frightened whimper as she saw this and the parcel.
"Oh, Claire," she said, "you ain't really going to the—the grave?"
"Yes, I am," she said. Her tones were so frigid and so melancholy that they caused a palpable start in her who heard them.
"Oh, Claire," moaned her mother, "if you go, I can't! I can't see him buried that way! Of course you can, if you want!"
"I do want," said Claire.
"But you'll come back! you'll come home again!"
As she was passing her mother, there in the hall, Claire turned and faced her. "I shall never come home again," she said, scarcely raising her voice above a whisper. "You remember what I told you."
Mrs. Twining was no longer merely frightened; she was terrified. "Claire!" she burst forth, "I ain't done right, perhaps. But don't be headstrong—now, don't! if you'd spoke to me yesterday—if you'd even spoke to me this morning, I might, ... well, I might, after all, have given the money. But it's too late now, and" ...