Crossing the big hall there was a narrow one, with a front window in the end, and two or three times, when Marion grew very lonely, she turned down her light and stole down to this window, taking some comfort in seeing the bright light shining opposite and knowing that friendly people were almost within call.
On her last trip to gather this small comfort she found the saloon dark, and the deep shadow cast by the shed-roof above the door made it seem black as the entrance to a cavern. The sight made her feel lonely and forsaken, but the darkness told her twelve o’clock had passed and the time was coming near when she must follow Elfie. She could find the station, she thought, even if the carriage went too fast for her; but it was frightful to think of going through the lonely city streets at that hour of the night.
“I will not think about it,” she said to herself. “God is in the dark as well as in the light. He will take care of me, and for Elfie’s sake I can do any thing.”
There were sounds of movement in the room opposite, and Marion, who had long before turned out her light to avoid observation and taken her position on the chair again, listened patiently at the transom.
After a while she heard the man leave the room softly and go down-stairs, and then an occasional fretful sound from Elfie, as if she was being roused from sleep. The man came back presently, and Marion heard him say as he re-entered the room:
“The carriage has come. It is too soon, but we had better go.”
Marion softly opened her door a half inch then, and through the crack saw one of the women put Elfie carefully into the man’s arms, telling him to sit down on the sofa in the hall till she put on her hat; then, with the door open, she turned up the gas—probably they had left the room dark to keep Elfie asleep—and began to arrange her hair hurriedly at the glass.
The other woman was rapidly packing some things into a bag. In the hall close by Marion’s room was an old hair-cloth sofa, and, cautiously opening her door a trifle farther, she saw the man sitting there with Elfie sleeping in his arms. In a moment he seemed suddenly to remember something important, and, carefully laying the child, still asleep, down upon the sofa, he walked quickly back to the room, while the door, which he moved in passing along, closed behind him.
A wild thought leaped into Marion’s mind.
“O, dare I? shall I?” she asked herself. Then, with a silent cry in her heart for help from God, she sprang into the hall, lifted the heavily sleeping child in her arms, and was back in her own room with her in an instant. She laid her gently on the bed and locked the door, with her head swimming and her heart beating so madly it seemed to rise clear up in her throat and nearly strangle her.