I felt in the air that all the girls knew my news about as soon as I did. Of course they didn't come near me. Even if I had been popular I don't believe they would have come. Sorrow somehow builds up such a barrier, and the one or two girls I met in the corridors kept close to the other wall and tried to avoid meeting my eyes. Gabriella and Miss Brown and the English teacher, whom I had always hated, saw me off. I begged to take the trip alone and Miss Brown finally allowed it. I thought of everything during that journey, and the more I thought the more I trusted myself to think, I don't know what made me so clear-headed and fearless, but I'd run my thoughts right up to any hard truth, and they wouldn't balk; they'd go right over. My mother had died when I was so little that I did not remember it and so this was the first test I had ever had. Perhaps--oh, perhaps,--I faced it clearly and squarely--perhaps when I was met at the station they would tell me that I had come too late. I knew now that I wouldn't give way. Some great wonderful strength was in me and I wasn't afraid of myself. My home-coming was very different from the one I had planned, but when we drew near to the familiar old station I just said, "Be strong," and I knew that I should. Dr. Maynard was at the station to meet me. The minute he got hold of my hand he said, "It's all right. You're not too late." "That's good," I replied, but somehow I couldn't feel any more joy than sorrow. I remember, in the carriage, I asked lots of straight-forward, businesslike questions and Dr. Maynard answered me in the same way. There was no hope. The end might come at any moment. When he stopped before our door and helped me out, he said, "Bobbie, you're a brave girl." But I wasn't. I couldn't have cried. I didn't know how.