"I belong to them, and they belong to me," thought poor Elma. "My ambitions were wrong; I shall sink now, and become a second Carrie. No, I shall never marry a Sam Raynes, but I shall become a sour old maid. Perhaps I shall do charring some day, there is no saying. I did wrong to try to raise myself. I——"
She never saw where her fault lay. She was not really repentant for her wrong-doing. The consequences were terrible, but the sin did not trouble her.
After a time, terribly exhausted and weary, she lay down just as she was on the soaking wet grass and fell asleep. She had been chilled and tired before she slept; but when in the very middle of the night she awoke she had never known anything like the bitter cold which she experienced. She could not at first remember where she was; but all too soon memory with a flash returned to her. She remembered all the events of yesterday. She knew that she was a runaway, that she had stolen money in her pocket. She might be arrested and put in prison; there was no saying what awful fate lay before her. In the dead of night lying there she became really frightened; she almost felt as if she could scream aloud in her terror. How empty the world seemed, how hollow! She wished the stars overhead would not blink at her; she wished the moon would go behind a cloud; she felt as if God Himself was looking at her through the face of the moon, and she did not like it. She covered her face with her cold and trembling hands, and tried to shut away what she felt might be the face of God Himself.
"I have been a very wicked girl," she moaned, and now, for the first time, she thought not so much of the consequences as of the sin. Tears rained from her eyes; she sat up and covered her face.
"God help me! Please, God, don't be too angry, with me; I am the most miserable girl in the world," she faltered.
After that frightened cry or prayer she felt more comfortable; and now, staggering to her feet, she saw, standing about ten yards away, and looking at her fixedly out of its large and luminous eyes, a brown cow. There were several more cows in the field, and this one had come up, and was gazing inquiringly at her. The motherly creature could not imagine what desolate and queer young thing this was, up and awake in the middle of the night. Such creatures as Elma, in the cow's experience, were not to be seen at these inclement hours. It lashed its long tail slowly from side to side, and kept gazing at her; and Elma looked at it, and her nervous terrors grew worse. The cow had horns; suppose it came near, and tried to horn her. She was not a country girl, and did not understand country creatures. A bitter cry of abject terror rose from her lips. She darted past the animal, rushed out by the way she had come into the field, and found herself once more on the highroad.
The cow, its curiosity very faintly tickled by the appearance of Elma on the scene, placidly resumed its feeding, and the terrified girl ran as if she had wings to her feet up the highroad.
In after days she was never able to tell how she spent the remainder of that night; but the longest hours only herald in the dawn, and at last the sun arose and the worst of her fears were over. The sun warmed her, and took away the dreadful feeling of chill which she was experiencing. She wandered about, sitting down now and then, too feeble, too tired, too utterly depressed to have room even for active fears, and at last the time came when she might again present herself at the station.