A Cry in the Wilderness

by Mary E. Waller

"You will write me a word—sometime, won't you, Marcia?"

"I won't promise, Cale. I want to be alone. After all, I am only going away from here as I came—to find work and a livelihood. Goodby."

I think he understood. He did not bid me goodby, but went away down the platform, walking slowly, stooping a little, his head drooping, as if all courage had failed him. And my heart was hardened.

XXXIII

I watched him and little Pete drive away down the highroad; watched them out of sight. Then I sat down on the bench outside the waiting-room to think, "What next?"

I had no intention of going to Spencerville. My trunk would be safe there with the address of a neighbor of my aunt. What I most wanted was to be alone and time to think, time to regain strength for the struggle before me.

I don't know that for ten minutes I thought at all. I suppose I must have, for I remembered that at this hour Jamie and Mrs. Macleod were to sail; that the Doctor was on his way to San Francisco. That Cale could do nothing by telegraphing them. And what would he telegraph?

The ticket-agent and baggage-master locked the office door and came over to me.

"I 'm going up the road a piece; the train is twenty minutes late. You won't mind sitting here alone?"