"I will die of starvation, I will sleep homeless in the streets, I will
walk a thousand miles, if need be, in search of work, rather than take
money from him again. Some one has hurt him through his money, and he
believes we are all alike; but I will prove to him that I indeed am
different."
A sense of appalling loneliness swept over me. If only a single person
might have been there with me in my little car! If I had but the
smallest companion! All of a sudden I remembered my little dog. My
immediate impulse was to get directly off the train, and I rushed over
to the door, and out upon the platform. He was down below, looking up
at the window of my compartment; but he saw me as I came out on the
platform and started to descend. At the same moment the train gave that
first sort of shake which precedes the starting, and I was thrown back
against the door. He called to me:
"Take care! Go back inside!"
The train was now moving, and I was holding to the iron bar.
"Oh, Mr. Hamilton," I cried, "I've forgotten Verley! I've forgotten my
little dog!"
He kept walking by the train, and now, as its speed increased, he was
forced to run. He put his hand to his mouth and called to me:
"I'll _bring_ him to you, little girl. Don't you worry!"
Worry!
I went back to my seat, and all that afternoon I did not move. The
shining country slipped by me, but I saw it not. I was like one plunged
in a deep, golden dream. There was a pain in my heart, but it was an
ecstatic one, and even as I cried softly, soundlessly, something within
me sang a song that seemed immortal.