"I'll see about it," he said, with a curious glance at her; then he went away.
'Tilda Jane knew that he would give her till the morning. She would not be troubled by him all day. She would have time to think. The worst difficulty in her experience confronted her. She would lose her dog in any case. To speak was to be sent back to the asylum, to remain silent was to let her Gippie become the cherished darling of some other girl, and in mute agony she caressed the smooth brown head, and put her hand before the almost sightless eyes as if she would hide from them even a suspicion of coming danger.
Mr. Jack had just stepped on one of the out-going trains. She could not appeal to him, and the table-girls, since they had found that she was a story-teller, slighted her in a most marked way.
She wandered down-stairs and out-of-doors. All day she loitered about the station platform watching the trains come in,—deliberate freight-trains, with their loads of merchandise, all to be examined by the busy customs officials, and rushing express trains, with their hundreds of hungry passengers who swept in crowds into the spacious dining-room.
She saw her companions in captivity borne away. The fashionable lady got on a train that was entering Canada, and the dismal boy and girl followed her. The little German Jew, who had been roaming about the hotel like a restless ghost, always with his hat on and a bundle in his hand as if he wished to impress all beholders with the fact that he was only tarrying for a short time, had, on the receipt of a telegram informing the inspectors that he had merely forgotten his papers, become a happy maniac. He ran to and fro, he collected his bundles, dropped them, to kiss the hand of a table-girl who gave him some cakes for his lunch, and had to be restrained by main force from boarding every train that pulled up at the station.
Fortunate travellers and unfortunate orphan! She could not get on one of the trains and be borne away. She was watched; she felt it, for she had now a perfect comprehension of the system of espionage established over unsuspecting travellers. The rich and well-dressed ones were passed by unless they were wearing sealskin wraps, the poor and penniless must give an account of themselves. So there was no escape for her by train. She must take to the road.
She had better go lie down and try to sleep, she reflected with a shudder, as she had now before her the prospect of another night in the woods. As soon as it got dark, she must try to slip away from the hotel.
At six o'clock she had had her nap and was in her favourite spot on her knees by her open window. Night was approaching, and she felt neither sorry, nor frightened, nor apprehensive. The sun was going down, and she was so completely wrapped in deep and silent content that she could neither speak nor think. She did not know that she was an ardent lover of nature—that her whole soul was at the present moment so filled with the glory of the winter evening that she had no room for her own troubles.
The clanging supper-bell disturbed her, and, with a sigh and a look of longing farewell at the sky, she closed the window and made her way to the dining-room.