"Dear Mother: Don't please worry about me. I will soon be back for a visit, only I have gone to Buffalo to get married. He is a nice young man and his father is rich, for I could not stand to have Pop beat me, nor do other people's work any more.
"Your aff. daughter,
"MARY DENBIGH."
The train, which Max had duly signaled, had stopped just as the writing was ended, and the pair of runaways had hurried into the last seat of the rear car.
During the journey that followed, Mary's nerves, accustomed to early hours, gave way not to tears, but to the exhaustion consequent upon the strain of her crowded day. Her hat in her lap, her russet hair made a pillow for her against the sharp window-sill, and, with Max's coat piled at the pane to protect her from the keen arrows of the inrushing night air, she lay back, the pink cheeks and the red mouth paler than an hour since, and the blue eyes closed. She did not seem to sleep, and yet it was in a dream that the ride ended, in a dream that she found herself one of a hurrying crowd stamping down the platform and into the huge elevator at the Jersey City station, in a dream that she clung faithfully to Max's arm as the sudden lights and damp odors struck her and as she dropped upon a straw-covered bench of a swaying car, which shot them immediately through a tunneled darkness into the very depths of the earth.
She knew from her geography that New York was separated from New Jersey by water.
"When do we cross the ferry, Max?" she asked.
Max smiled, his thin lips showing his white teeth in sharp contrast to his olive skin.
"We're crossing it now," he answered.
"But where's the water?"
Max, mopping his dark forehead with a purple-bordered handkerchief, pointed to the roof of the car.