he in his heart--enough to humble him
and fill him with an abiding reverence for a love that will live, as
Marie's had lived, on bitterness and regret.

Nearly distracted under the lash of her own eagerness and the fear that
her mother would return too soon and bully her into giving up her wild
plan, Marie, carrying Lovin Child on one arm and lugging the suit case
in the other hand, and half running, managed to catch a street car and
climb aboard all out of breath and with her hat tilted over one ear.
She deposited the baby on the seat beside her, fumbled for a nickel,
and asked the conductor pantingly if she would be in time to catch the
four-five to the city. It maddened her to watch the bored deliberation
of the man as he pulled out his watch and regarded it meditatively.

"You'll catch it--if you're lucky about your transfer," he said, and
rang up her fare and went off to the rear platform, just as if it were
not a matter of life and death at all. Marie could have shaken him for
his indifference; and as for the motorman, she was convinced that he ran
as slow as he dared, just to drive her crazy. But even with these two
inhuman monsters doing their best to make her miss the train, and with
the street car she wanted to transfer to running off and leaving her at
the very last minute, and with Lovin Child suddenly discovering that he
wanted to be carried, and that he emphatically did not want her to carry
the suit case at all, Marie actually reached the depot ahead of the
four-five train. Much disheveled and flushed with nervousness and her
exertions, she dragged Lovin Child up the steps by one arm, found a seat
in the chair car and, a few minutes later, suddenly realized that she
was really on her way to an unknown little town in an unknown part of
the country, in quest of a man who very likely did not want to be found
by her.

Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and were traced to the corners of her
mouth by the fat, investigative finger of Lovin Child before Marie could
find her handkerchief and wipe them away. Was any one in this world
ever so utterly, absolutely miserable? She doubted it. What if she found
Bud--drunk, as Joe had described him? Or, worse than that, what if she
did not find him at all? She tried not to cry, but it seemed as though
she must cry or scream. Fast as she wiped them away, other tears dropped
over her eyelids upon her cheeks, and were given the absorbed attention
of Lovin Child, who tried t