night?”

“No. I am an utter stranger here. I came up this morning from Newburyport––that’s about forty miles. I lost my purse and my ticket, so you see I was quite helpless. I was afraid to ask anyone for help, and then––I hoped every minute that I might find my father.”

“But I thought you knew no one here?”

“I don’t. If Dad is here, it is quite by chance.”

She looked again into his blue eyes and then back to the fire.

“It is wonderful how you came to me,” she said.

“I saw you twice before.”

22

“Once,” she said, “was just beyond the Gardens.”

“You noticed me?”

“Yes.”

She leaned forward.

“Yes,” she repeated, “I noticed you because of all the faces I had looked into since morning yours was the first I felt I could trust.”

“Thank you.”

“And now,” she continued, “I feel as though you might even understand better than the others what my errand here to Boston was.” She paused again, adding, “I should hate to have you think me silly.”

She studied his face eagerly. His eyes showed interest; his mouth assured her of sympathy.

“Go on,” he bade her.

To him she was like someone he had known before––like one of those vague women he used to see between the stars. Within even these last few minutes he had gotten over the strangeness of her being here. He did not think of this building as a house, of this room as part of a home; it was just a cave opening from the roadside into which they had fled to escape the rain.

It seemed difficult for her to begin. Now that she had determined to tell 

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