bulbs. They made her eyes ache. But presently she made out,
to her left, the dark surface of a big river. A few more lights were
glinting upon it, appearing and disappearing. Vaguely she made out the
outlines of a few vessels that were battling against the drifting ice,
for she could see myriad sparks flying from what must have been the
smokestacks of tugs or river steamers.

Her fellow passengers were mostly laborers or emigrants going north or
west. The air was tainted with the scent of garlic. Children began to
cry and later grew silent or merely fretful. Finally the languor of
infinite weariness came over the girl and she lay back, uncomfortably,
and tried to sleep. At frequent intervals she awoke and sat up again,
with terror expressed in her face and deep blue eyes. Once she fell
into a dream and was so startled that she had to restrain herself from
rushing down the aisle and seeking to escape from some unknown danger
that seemed to be threatening her.

Again she passed a finger over the blurred glass and sought to look
out. The train seemed to be plunging into strange and grisly horrors.
Overwrought as she was a flood of tears came to her eyes and seemed to
bring her greater calm, so that at last she fell into a deeper sleep,
heavy, visionless, no longer attended with sudden terrors.

CHAPTER IV

To Roaring River

At last the morning came and Madge awoke. At first she could not
realize where she was. Her limbs ached from their cramped position and
a pain was gnawing at her, which meant hunger. In spite of the heaters
in the car a persistent chilliness had come over her, and all at once
she was seized by an immense discouragement. She felt that she was now
being borne away to some terrible place. Those people called it
Roaring River. Now that she thought of it the very name represented
something that was gruesome and panicky. But then she lay back and
reflected that its flood would be cleaner and its bed a better place
to leap into, if her fears were realized, than the turbid waters of
the Hudson. She knew that she was playing her last stake. It must
result in a life that could be tolerated or else in an end she had
battled against, to the limit of endurance.

She quietly made a meal of the provisions she had brought. Her weary
brain no longer reacted to disturbing thoughts and vague fears and she
felt that she was drifting, peacefully, to some end that was by this
time nearly indifferent to her. T