Then Grandma Maynard wouldn’t have to pretend to love her.

Clearly, that was the only thing to do.  She couldn’t run away, with no destination in view.

She had no claim on Grandma Sherwood or Uncle Steve, but Grandma Maynard had wanted her,—­really wanted her.

Marjorie looked at the little clock on her dressing table.  It was almost three o’clock.  She knew there was a train to New York about three, and she resolved to go on it.

At first she thought of taking some things in a bag, but she decided not to, as she didn’t want any of the things the Maynards had given her.

“Oh,” she thought, while the tears came afresh; “my name isn’t even Maynard!  I don’t know what it is!”

She put on a blue linen dress, and a blue hat with roses on it.  Some instinct of sadness made her tie her hair with black ribbon.

As she went downstairs, she heard Mrs. Corey say, “I am astounded at these revelations!” and her mother replied, “Dear friend, I knew you would be.”

Marjorie wasn’t crying then, she felt as if she had no tears left.  She shut her teeth together hard, and went out by a side door.  This way she could reach the street unobserved, and she walked straight ahead to the railroad station.  She had a five-dollar gold piece that Uncle Steve had sent her on Christmas, and that, with a little silver change, she carried in her pocketbook.  But she left behind her pearl ring and all the little trinkets or valuables she possessed.

She felt as if her heart had turned to stone.  It wasn’t so much anger at Mr. and Mrs. Maynard as it was that awful sense of desolation,—­as if the world had come to an end.

At one moment she would think she missed King the most; then with the thought of her father, a rush of tears would come; and then her poor little tortured heart would cry out, “Oh, Mother, Mother!”

She knew perfectly well the way to New York, and though the station agent looked at her sharply when she bought a ticket, he said nothing.  For Marjorie was a self-possessed little girl, of good manners and quiet air when she chose to be.  With her ticket in her hand, she sat down to wait for the train.  There were few people in the station at that hour, and no one who knew her.

When the train came puffing in, she went out and took it, in a matter-of-fact way, as if quite accustomed to travelling alone.

Really, she felt very much frightened.  She had never been on a train alone before, and the noise of the cars and the bustle of the people, and the shouting of the trainmen made her nervous.

And then, with a fresh flood of woe, the remembrance of why she was going would come over her, and obliterate all other considerations.

For perhaps half an hour she kept the tears back bravely enough; but as she rode on, and realized more and more deeply what it all meant, she could control herself no longer, and burst into a paroxysm of weeping.