"Fo'kes out, eh! He-he! Where you want it dumped?"
"Oh,——why, yes—oh,—you may just keep it here until I call for it, please." Without further words, she hurried away. Down the street she came to a boy with a push cart, directed him to the address, let him in, saw to the loading of her luggage, and, when this was completed, slipped quietly out behind him. When a few doors away, she paused long enough to gaze longingly in the direction of the number she had just left. And then, after a smothered sob, she caught a car that took her miles to another side of town, and where the houses were recently built near a new extension of the car tracks.
Two hours later, she had succeeded in getting a room from a woman who had a daughter about her age. She would get her meals at a small restaurant nearby, until she could arrange to cook them in her room, or, maybe, she might be allowed to cook them in the kitchen, on the stove of the family. She didn't request that privilege this day, for she was too greatly excited to say more than she had to.
"It's terrible," she moaned silently, when alone in the room she had secured. "I would not have left them like this for anything in the world; but I could never stay there and take the risk. I could never look in their faces again.... But, oh, how I dislike to be away from them! It is almost the only real home I ever knew, and the only ones who ever really loved me—but Sidney.... I must not think of him, I must forget. But can I? That is what has worried me these months. I can never forget how he looked at me that day; that day when he would have spoken....
"And then he came.... That night—but that was the end, the end of my dream. And yet, only yesterday, I don't know why, I couldn't seem to help it; but I had hopes, dear hopes—but today——" She went to sleep after a time, and all the night through, was asleep and awake by turns. It seemed that morning would never come; and when it did at last, she arose with heavy eyes.
She decided to go for a walk, and not canvass that morning. She was glad now that Constance's work was in another part of the city, and she could at least go about hers without any likelihood of meeting her.
"Did you rest well last night?" inquired the lady of the house, a hard-faced dark woman, whose appearance did not appeal to Mildred the night before, and now she was less impressed than before.
"Oh, very well, thank you," she replied quickly. So much so that the other looked at her keenly, and when Mildred saw her eyes now, she detected an air of suspicion therein. She flinched perceptibly. The other saw this, and was more suspicious still.
"You seem worried, nervous," said the other, with feigned kindness; but even in the tone, could be discerned a mockery.
"I never sleep well when I change rooms and sleep in a new bed," said Mildred, calmly. The other nodded.