eeper, foregoing even a berth in the tourist car. She could
make Lovin Child comfortable with a full seat in the day coach for
his little bed, and for herself it did not matter. She could not sleep
anyway. So she sat up all night and thought, and worried over the
future which was foolish, since the future held nothing at all that she
pictured in it.

She was tired when she reached the hotel, carrying Lovin Child and her
suit case too--porters being unheard of in small villages, and the one
hotel being too sure of its patronage to bother about getting guests
from depot to hall bedroom. A deaf old fellow with white whiskers and
poor eyesight fumbled two or three keys on a nail, chose one and led the
way down a little dark hall to a little, stuffy room with another
door opening directly on the sidewalk. Marie had not registered on her
arrival, because there was no ink in the inkwell, and the pen had only
half a point; but she was rather relieved to find that she was not
obliged to write her name down--for Bud, perhaps, to see before she had
a chance to see him.

Lovin Child was in his most romping, rambunctious mood, and Marie's head
ached so badly that she was not quite so watchful of his movements as
usual. She gave him a cracker and left him alone to investigate the tiny
room while she laid down for just a minute on the bed, grateful because
the sun shone in warmly through the window and she did not feel the
absence of a fire. She had no intention whatever of going to sleep--she
did not believe that she could sleep if she had wanted to. Fall asleep
she did, however, and she must have slept for at least half an hour,
perhaps longer.

When she sat up with that startled sensation that follows unexpected,
undesired slumber, the door was open, and Lovin Child was gone. She had
not believed that he could open the door, but she discovered that its
latch had a very precarious hold upon the worn facing, and that a slight
twist of the knob was all it needed to swing the door open. She rushed
out, of course, to look for him, though, unaware of how long she had
slept, she was not greatly disturbed. Marie had run after Lovin Child
too often to be alarmed at a little thing like that.

I don't know when fear first took hold of her, or when fear was swept
away by the keen agony of loss. She went the whole length of the one
little street, and looked in all the open doorways, and traversed the
one short alley that led behind the hote