A little shocked silence ensued, then Carley found herself being led across the lower level and up the wide stairway.  As she mounted to the vast-domed cathedral-like chamber of the station a strange sensation pierced her with a pang.  Not the old thrill of leaving New York or returning!  Nor was it the welcome sight of the hurrying, well-dressed throng of travelers and commuters, nor the stately beauty of the station.  Carley shut her eyes, and then she knew.  The dim light of vast space above, the looming gray walls, shadowy with tracery of figures, the lofty dome like the blue sky, brought back to her the walls of Oak Creek Canyon and the great caverns under the ramparts.  As suddenly as she had shut her eyes Carley opened them to face her friends.

“Let me get it over—­quickly,” she burst out, with hot blood surging to her face.  “I—­I hated the West.  It was so raw—­so violent—­so big.  I think I hate it more—­now. . . .  But it changed me—­made me over physically—­and did something to my soul—­God knows what. . . .  And it has saved Glenn.  Oh! he is wonderful!  You would never know him. . . .  For long I had not the courage to tell him I came to bring him back East.  I kept putting it off.  And I rode, I climbed, I camped, I lived outdoors.  At first it nearly killed me.  Then it grew bearable, and easier, until I forgot.  I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit now that somehow I had a wonderful time, in spite of all. . . .  Glenn’s business is raising hogs.  He has a hog ranch.  Doesn’t it sound sordid?  But things are not always what they sound—­or seem.  Glenn is absorbed in his work.  I hated it—­I expected to ridicule it.  But I ended by infinitely respecting him.  I learned through his hog-raising the real nobility of work. . . .  Well, at last I found courage to ask him when he was coming back to New York.  He said ‘never!’ . . .  I realized then my blindness, my selfishness.  I could not be his wife and live there.  I could not.  I was too small, too miserable, too comfort-loving—­too spoiled.  And all the time he knew this—­knew I’d never be big enough to marry him. . . .  That broke my heart.  I left him free—­and here I am. . . .  I beg you—­don’t ask me any more—­and never to mention it to me—­so I can forget.”

The tender unspoken sympathy of women who loved her proved comforting in that trying hour.  With the confession ruthlessly made the hard compression in Carley’s breast subsided, and her eyes cleared of a hateful dimness.  When they reached the taxi stand outside the station Carley felt a rush of hot devitalized air from the street.  She seemed not to be able to get air into her lungs.

“Isn’t it dreadfully hot?” she asked.

“This is a cool spell to what we had last week,” replied Eleanor.

“Cool!” exclaimed Carley, as she wiped her moist face.  “I wonder if you Easterners know the real significance of words.”