"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way that I can see, and yet I must—oh, I must!"
Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly, ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and hammer the glass door of the cab.
The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen," she said, in a low tone. "See my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home."
The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes were now on him and his daughter.
"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door.
She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her. Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted, seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and, as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed to be whirling to its doom?
A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what if, on finding her gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father before the train left?
"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it, and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her.
They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so.
Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve. Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk wrote on a blackboard bulletin: