She wished that she did not have to go to the Lanfair house, even though Stephen was away, but there were a few possessions in her room which she must secure. Besides, she did not know how to explain her failure to go. In the station she inquired about the night train to the north. When she heard that it still left at 10.35, she smiled with bitter amusement, having unconsciously expected that a new era had begun, even for trains.
The open space before the station was almost deserted, only occasionally a traveler plunged into the sunshine from the cool shadow of the portico. But indifferent to the heat, which was almost tropical in spite of last night's storm, Ellen made her way toward the street of Mr. Goldstein and thence toward the river. She saw the dome of the Capitol and stood still. Why not spend her brief hour with memories of her father and spare herself a keener pain?
But she went on toward the shining river, her shoulders lifted so that three elderly gentlemen sitting in the windows of a clubhouse opened drowsy eyes and craned admiring necks. All had comfortable fortunes, one had great possessions and one had memories of intense happiness, but all would have exchanged that which they had for that which Ellen had and which they would have no more.
Suddenly she crossed the street and sat down on a bench in the park. She was breathing rapidly, she must compel herself to be composed. She must forget her dreams, she must take account of what she still had and thus fortify herself before she entered Stephen's house.
Work?—the reminder had consoled her this morning, why could it not console her now? Friends?—she had made few, and Miss Grammer was old. Books?—ah, what miserable defect in her made them seem dull? The beauty of the world?—it, alas! merely quickened one's pain.
How often she had stolen away to the heights above the lake or to a secluded seat from which she could watch Triphammer Fall! She thought of it now without pleasure. How often she had marked the perpetually changing aspect of the stream before her! As if to recall her pleasure she looked at it with attention. Below her on the bank stood a pair of young aspen trees whose delicate interlacing branches formed a lattice-work through which the river showed here a pale lavender, here a delicate gray. Toward the farther bank a mile away a rosy cloud seemed to rest upon the water. The sight brought not pleasure but tears. She was to see the river no more with the eye of possession; this was not home to her, it was a place of strangers.
She rose quickly. She would get the books which Lanfair had given her, the dress which hung in the closet which had been hers, and she would flee.