eyes. He realized
that if she should make a scene there, if he should hear again that
laugh and those wailing sobs, he could not answer for what he might
do. There even flashed across his mind a mental picture of the
on-rush of the train, and of a man hurling himself before it, to get
for once and all out of sight and sound of the unspeakable,
grotesque, unmanning shame of the thing. It was when he saw her that
he resolved that he would not put his foot on the train, lest she
might think he meant to go. However, she would probably have made no
manifestation. She was herself in mortal terror of retribution
because of the things which she had confiscated in payment of her
debt. She had little of Minna Eddy's strength of confidence in her
own proceedings. She had, however, consoled herself by the reflection
that possibly nobody knew that she had taken them. She had hidden
them away under her mattress, and slept uneasily on the edge of the
bed, lest she break the cups and saucers. If it had not been so early
in the morning, presumably too early for visitors from the City, she
would not have dared show herself at the station. In these days she
sewed behind closed doors, with her curtains down. She went to her
customer's houses for tryings-on, instead of having her patrons come
to her. She was always ready, working with her eyes at the parting of
the curtains, to flee down a certain pair of outside back-stairs, and
cut across the fields, should men be sent out from the City to
collect money. Rosenstein's store was under her little apartment, and
she knew she could trust him not to betray her. The dressmaker was in
these days fairly tragic in appearance, with a small and undignified,
but none the less real, tragedy. It was the despair of a small nature
over small issues, but none the less despair. Carroll would have paid
that bill first of all, had he had the money, but none but himself
knew how little money he had. Had the aunt in Kentucky not sent the
wherewithal for the railway fares, it was hard to be seen how the
journey could have been taken at all. It had even occurred to Carroll
that some jewelry must needs be sacrificed. He had made up his mind,
in that case, that Anna would be the one to make the sacrifice. She
had an old set of cameos from her grandmother, which he knew were
valuable if taken to the right place. Anna had considered the matter,
and would have spared him the suggestion had not the check come from
the