Everything he or Mrs. Slawson had told her, that had seemed convincing at the time, was negatived now, by her knowledge of what she was. Now she knew why she had never been able to compel life to give her what she demanded. It was because she was one of the "unfit," predestined, by two generations of degenerates, not to survive. She could see nothing but animus, as her grandmother’s motive for telling her. The accumulated, smoldering resentment of years, gathering force through this crowning act of injustice, flamed up fiercely until it blinded her. When, at last, she reached the station, it was only to find she had missed the car she should have taken. She must wait an hour for another. She almost smiled. The little incident was so of a piece with the rest of her experience. As she composed herself to sit out the hour, in the chill desolateness of the deserted waiting-room, her thoughts still harried her, but now she felt them less keenly. It was as if her wits were wrapped in cotton. At a touch on her shoulder, she started up, trembling, dazed. She had not seen the station-master, until he actually stood before her. "Did you want to take the next trolley to Burbank?" "Yes," she answered, wondering why her eyes were so heavy, her head so dull. "Well, it’ll be along in five minutes, now. I _thought_ you wanted to take the last one, but you didn’t stir, and come to find out, you were asleep. I hated to rouse you now, only I thought, maybe, I’d ought to." She had slept two hours. Speeding through the country, her head became clearer. Not for that were her thoughts less harassing. Another element had entered in, to make them more so,—indecision. Little by little, bit by bit, came back certain stray fragments of sentences she dimly recollected having heard Mrs. Slawson pronounce. Sentences that, at the time, in her benumbed state, had left her cold, making no conscious impression. She remembered Martha’s face, when first she saw her at the porch door. What had she been afraid of? Martha Slawson, who was never afraid of anything? The answer that had sprung to her own lips, was given without deliberation. It had just naturally come in response to Mrs. Slawson’s look of dread. She had replied that her grandmother was "all right." How had she known her grandmother was all right? She had not stopped to inform herself, before she left the house. She had gone without a word, without a look. The last time she and her grandmother had come to grief, trying to "understand each other," the old woman had borne a brave front until the ordeal was over, then had quietly fainted away. What if she had done the same thing now?—when no one was there to come to the rescue. * * * * *