His packing finished, Don went downstairs with still an hour or more on his hands before train-time. But he did not care to go anywhere. He was absolutely contented here. He was content merely to wander from room to room. He sat down at the piano in the dark, and for a long while played to her––played to her just the things he knew she would like.
It was half-past eleven before he left the house, and then he went almost reluctantly. She was more here than anywhere in the world except where he was going. He found himself quite calm about her here. The moment he came out on the street again he noticed a difference. 260 His own phrase came back to frighten him:––
“She’d care like that––if she cared at all.”
Supposing that after he found her, she did not care?
At the station he wondered if it were best to wire her, but decided against it. She might run away. It was never possible to tell what a woman might do, and Sally Winthrop was an adept at concealing herself. He remembered that period when, although he had been in the same office with her, she had kept herself as distant as if across the ocean. She had only to say, “Not at home,” and it was as if she said, “I am not anywhere.”
He went to his berth at once, and had, on the whole, a bad night of it. He asked himself a hundred questions that he could not answer––that Sally Winthrop alone could answer. Though it was only lately that he had prided himself on knowing her desires in everything, he was forced to leave all these questions unanswered.
At ten the next morning he took the train for Portland. At two he was on the train for 261 Brenton and hurrying through a strange country to her side.
When he reached Brenton he was disappointed not to find her when he stepped from the train. The station had been so closely identified with her through the long journey that he had lost sight of the fact that it existed for any other purpose. But only a few station loafers were there to greet him, and they revealed but an indifferent interest. He approached one of them.
“Can you tell me where Miss Winthrop is stopping?”
The man looked blank.