“Yes, it is really all over,” answered the lady, smiling. “You have enjoyed it, haven’t you? I have been watching you all the afternoon.”
Gretel did not answer. It would not have been possible for her to have spoken just then, there was such a big lump in her throat, and the tears were so very near the surface. She turned away quickly, and the lady, thinking she was shy, paid no further attention to her.
How bitterly cold it was. Gretel shook from head to foot as she stepped from the steam-heated building out into the windy street. But what was more surprising to Gretel than the sudden change of atmosphere, was the fact that it was still broad daylight, and that the sun was shining almost as brightly as it had done when she entered fairy-land. She had so completely lost count of time that it had not occurred to her that the world would look just the same when she came back to it again. For the first moment she was almost dazed, and then, with a mighty effort, she pulled herself together, and hurried across the street. To be alone in her own room, that was her one desire just then. She must cry, and nobody must see her. After she had cried for a long time perhaps that dreadful choking feeling in her throat would go away, and she would be able to talk to people again.
Nobody noticed the little girl as she slipped quietly into the apartment-house, but she did not take the elevator, fearing the boy—a friendly person, with whom she had often exchanged remarks—might ask embarrassing questions. She preferred to climb the six long flights of stairs to the Marshes’ apartment on foot. Annie, the colored maid, opened the door in answer to her ring, but Annie was not fond of talking, and Gretel slipped past her, and gained her own room, without speaking or being spoken to. Once there, with the door closed behind her, her first act was to fling herself face downward on the bed, and give way to the long-pent-up burst of tears.
“Oh, I’ve been wicked! I’ve been dreadfully wicked!” sobbed the poor little culprit, as wave after wave of remorse and shame swept over her. “I took a ticket to fairy-land that didn’t belong to me. It was as bad as stealing. I ought to have taken it back to the box office; I knew I ought all the time, but I didn’t do it. Oh, I’m so ashamed—so dreadfully ashamed!”
How long she lay there she did not know, but gradually the storm subsided; the choking sensation in her throat relaxed, and she began to feel more like herself. But she was very unhappy; more unhappy than she had ever been in her life. Even when her father died it had not been like this. Then she had been only sad, not ashamed, and now she was so ashamed that she longed to creep away and hide somewhere, where nobody would ever be able to find her again.
The sound which aroused her at last was the sudden opening of her door, and Annie’s voice saying—
“The ladies has come home, and you’re wanted in the parlor.”
It had not taken Annie long to discover that Gretel was not a person of any particular importance in the household, and she treated the child with as little consideration as possible. She did not even take the trouble to glance into the room as she delivered the message, but turned away at once, and went back to her work, while Gretel rose slowly to her feet, her poor little guilty heart sinking down, down like a lump of lead.
“They’ve found out,” was her first thought; “somebody has told them, and now I’m going to be punished.”