“Please don't!” she begged. “If you knew how glad I am to be able to do something, if it is only to give up!”
The car and Jim were at the door a few minutes later and Mary, having said good-by to the Judge and promised faithfully to keep him posted as to events at home, climbed into the tonneau and was whizzed away. Jim, the driver, after a few attempts at conversation, mainly concerning the “unseasonableness” of the weather, finding responses few and absently given, relapsed into silence. Silence was what Mary desired, silence and speed, and Jim obliged with the latter.
Over the road by which, a dozen years before, she had driven in the old buggy she now rode again. Then, as now, she wondered what she should find at her journey's end. Here, however, the resemblance ceased, for whereas then she looked forward, with a child's anticipations, to nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful adventures, now she saw ahead—what? Great care and anxiety and trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure and disappointment and heartbreak. And behind her she was leaving opportunity and the pleasant school life and friends, leaving them forever.
She was leaving Crawford, too, leaving him without a word of explanation. She had had no time to write even a note. Mrs. Wyeth, after protesting vainly against her guest's decision to leave for the Cape by the earliest train in the morning, had helped to pack a few essential belongings; the others she was to pack and send later on, when she received word to do so. The three, Mrs. Wyeth, Miss Pease, and Mary, had talked and argued and planned until almost daylight. Then followed an hour or two of uneasy sleep, a hurried breakfast, and the rush to the train. Mary had not written Crawford; the shock of what she had been told at the Howes' and her great anxiety to see Judge Baxter and learn if what she had heard was true had driven even her own love story from her mind. Now she remembered that she had given him permission to call, not this evening but the next, to say good-by before leaving for the West. He would be disappointed, poor fellow. Well, she must not think of that. She must not permit herself to think of anyone but her uncles or of anything except the great debt of love and gratitude she owed them and of the sacrifice they had made for her. She could repay a little of that sacrifice now; at least she could try. She would think of that and of nothing else.
And then she wondered what Crawford would think or say when he found she had gone.
CHAPTER XVIII
The main street of South Harniss looked natural enough as the motor car buzzed along it. It was but a few months since Mary had been there, yet it seemed ever so much more. She felt so much older than on those Christmas holidays. When the store of Hamilton and Company came in sight she sank down on the back seat in order not to be seen. She knew her uncles were, in all probability, there at the store, and she wished to see Isaiah and talk with him before meeting them.
Isaiah was in the kitchen by the cookstove when she opened the door. He turned, saw her, and stood petrified. Mary entered and closed the door behind her. By that time Mr. Chase had recovered sufficiently from his ossification to speak.
“Eh—eh—by time!” he gasped. “I snum if it ain't you!”