Only fifty miles from a great city, the little station seemed like the typical lodge in a wilderness; as far as one could see up or down the track, on either side were wooded hills. A vast silence seemed to be gathering from unseen fastnesses, to halt in this spot. There were no houses and no lights to be seen anywhere, except that one swinging on the pole above, and the moon which was just rising. It was, in fact, one of those places which consist of the far, back-lying acres of the great country-owners, and which seem to the casual traveler forgotten or unknown in their extent and apparently primitive condition. To the women sitting on the bench, wrapped around by the loneliness and the intense stillness of the oncoming night, the whole expedition appeared at last, unveiled in all its grim betrayal. For the first time since Lois had left home, a wild, seething anxiety for Justin possessed her. How could she have left him? She must get back to him at once! "Oh, Dosia, we must get home again; we must get home!" she cried, starting up so vehemently that the baby in her arms screamed, and Lois walked up and down distractedly hushing him, and then, as he still wailed, sat down once more and bared her white bosom to quiet him. "We shall have to get back; Dosia, we must start at once." "We shall have to walk to Haledon," said Dosia. "Yes, yes. Perhaps we may come to some farm-house where they will let us have a wagon. It is seven miles to Haledon--that isn't very far! I often walked five miles with Justin before I was married, and a mile or two more is nothing. There are plenty of trains from Haledon." "Oh, we can do it easily enough," said Dosia, though her heart was as lead within her breast. "You had better eat some of these biscuits before we start," she advised, taking them out of the bag; and Lois munched them obediently, and drank some tepid water from a pitcher which Dosia had found inside. As she put it back again in its place, she slipped to the side of the platform and looked down the moon-filled, narrow valley. Through all this journey Dosia had carried double thoughts; her voice called where none might hear. It spoke now as she whispered, with hands outspread: "Oh, _why_ weren't you in when I went for you? Why didn't you come and take care of us, when I needed you so much? Why did you let us go off this way? You might have known! Why _don't_ you come and take care of us? There's no one to take care of us but you! _You_ could!" A dry sob stopped the words--the deep, inherent cry of womankind to man for help, for succor. She stooped over and picked up an oakleaf that had lain on the ground since the winter, and pressed it to her bosom, and sent it fluttering off on a gust of wind down the incline, as if it could indeed take her message with it, before she went back to Lois.