flashlight! Its merciless eye would be sure to search her out if she attempted flight. Perhaps it would be safer to lie still till they went away and trust that they would go out by the same path they had entered and not discover her. Yet when she tried to relax and wait she was trembling so that it seemed as if the very cords that[34] held her being together were loosed and she was slowly becoming useless like Dorothea’s big bisque doll that lay on a trunk in the attic with its head and arms lolling at the end of emaciated rubber cords. She had a frightened feeling that if she lay still very long she would become unable ever to move again, the sensation that comes in nightmare. [34] Then into her frenzied mind came the thought of Eugene and Nannette and how triumphant they would be if they knew she was going through this agony. They would say it was good punishment for her behavior, a just reward for her headstrong actions. Had she been wrong in going away as she did? Had they been right to insist on her giving up the examinations? Somehow her conscience, hard pressed as she was, could not see that they had a right to keep her from the only way she knew of earning her living. Somehow she could not feel that any law, either physical or moral laid any obligation upon her to stay with the children when the mother had known for three weeks of her coming examinations, and when she often of her own accord let them take their lunch to school if it happened to suit her own convenience. Junior might have been hurt playing ball at recess as well as at noon, and he always played ball at recess. No, her conscience was clear on that score. She had a perfect right to put herself in the way of not being dependent upon them financially, and the school teaching was the only way she knew to do it. Still, of course it was all over now. She had gone away from any chance that might have come to her through those examinations, gone out into space alone without any goal or any plan. She might have[35] done that in the first place of course if she had known they were going to act that way. Well it couldn’t be helped now. She had gone and nothing would induce her to go back. Perhaps when she found a home, if she found a home, she might send back to find out the result of her hard work. It might do her some good somewhere else. But she was too tired now, and too frightened to think about it. [35] She stole another glance toward the invaders. They seemed to be arguing in whispers about something, gesticulating, pointing. Perhaps she might manage to slip away while they were absorbed without their notice. She made a soft
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