The man had come for her trunk soon after Tim had been arrested, and Julie had managed to slip away out of the house without having to face a parting and explanation with any of her friends there. She had spent most of the long, oppressive, and tragic day in the railway station, chiefly because she did not know where else to go. It was a strained and terrible time of waiting in heat, and confusion, and the weary sordid smells of humanity traveling in hot weather. Every now and again waves of hysteria swept over her, so that it was only by gripping her hands very tight, and by staring resolutely at the moving people before her, that she succeeded in keeping herself from breaking down altogether there in the public waiting-room. But finally the afternoon came, then twilight and supper; and then at last her train was made up, and she could get on and go to bed in the sleeping-car where she had been fortunate enough to secure a berth. She was so completely worn out by the sleeplessness of the night before and by all she had suffered, that--as soon as the train got under way and the intense city heat had lessened as it took the cool open stretches of the country night--the swaying of her berth, and the monotonous gray roar of the wheels, broken only by an occasional hollow moment running through the pattern of the gray roar as the train swept over a culvert, relaxed her all over, lulling her down and down through hazy thoughts, dreams, and at last into sleep and profound unconsciousness. Now it was morning; she was awake again and, sitting up in her berth, looking at the light, she told herself, “I’m going home.” She realized that the air was cool and fresh, almost sharp. Putting up the curtain, she peeped out. The train was on an up-grade, pushing its way steadily along through deep cuts which occasionally closed into tunnels, or again running out into the open along the edges of hillsides, from the steep drop of which one looked down into hollows and little valleys filled with mists. “We’ve struck the mountains, I’ve come home!” she breathed. She clasped her arms tight around her knees, and the long swell of a deep emotion laid hold upon her. Somewhere in the profound sleep of the night the tension of life had snapped, releasing her into something sure and steadfast. Big things--pity, truth, love, mountains, God, the sky, came shouldering boldly up through all the trivialities of life, and gathered her into an enormous peace. “I’ve broke through, I’ve broke through,” she whispered, “through into the big things. An’ _he’s_ broke through, too! He’s safe, they can’t tetch him now--they can’t lay the weight of a finger on him now. He’s out in the deep channel. He’s safe in the Lord.”