When they went into the long dim car hung with green curtains, every one was asleep.
Mrs. Price helped her daughter to undress and Winnie lay down on her side in the lower berth with the window shade up. As she lay there and the train began to move, the oppression of the last few weeks culminated in her emotions, in an unreasoning panic, and she imagined that she was already dead.
It was foggy. The train passed through a railway yard and Winnie saw rows of empty cars, long and low, that were like monsters with lusterless hides and opaque eyes, submerged in mist. Hundreds of dull eyes stared from the dimly shining windows, the pale eyes of the cars.
Delicate bridges floated over her head as the train passed beneath them, and the swinging arms of derricks and huge machines, lifted through the mist, were as frail as lace.
Lights burst against the mist like rotted stars, and there were other lights that opened upon her suddenly, glad and unseeing as the eyes of blind men raised in delight.
The moon, small with distance, slimed over with fog, was green like money lost a long time. The telegraph wires stretched across the pale landscape tautly, like harpstrings. One after another the flat branched poles seemed to open submissive palms to the passing train.
Winnie wanted the morning. She wanted to get back to Mamma Farley and her familiar commonplace. Before expanding in voluptuous rebellion, Winnie wanted to know that the cage was sure. Somehow Mamma Farley made her more certain of its sureness.
In the morning they alighted in the teeming station, and Winnie, anxious not to be seen, walked a little behind Mrs. Price. Winnie was ashamed of herself. She felt herself cold and isolated in the vividness of the life she contained.
At the big gate at the end of the track, they met Laurence. "Well, Winnie. Well, Mrs. Price."
Winnie looked up at him with eyes shuddering in softness. She showed him her helplessness against which he could not defend himself. When she lifted her mouth he had to kiss her. She was ashamed of his shabby clothes.