It took her a very short time to pack her bag. There remained two hours before the train. She spent it sitting in her room and letting the knowledge of what she was doing penetrate her mind. It occurred to her that she should let some one know where she was going but in the face of Gregory’s illness it seemed even less possible to confide the news of her marriage. That was to have been a glorious revelation to a few people. She could not turn it into tragedy, so she decided to tell no one. To her father she wrote a letter. Yet even to him she could not tell the facts. It seemed now when circumstances seemed to imperil her secret that she clutched it even more tightly to herself. She could not bear the thought of comment breaking in like a destructive barrage on the secret glory and beauty she cherished. In her absorption she did not think much of consequences or possible worry for any one. Only as she told Mrs. Miller that she wanted to pay up for her week and that she had been called out of town, did it occur to her from a comment of Mrs. Miller’s, that her mother was coming in a day or two. The complication puzzled her--then she overrode it boldly. It was one of the things that had to be. So she wrote a note for her mother and entrusted it to Mrs. Miller. It was only a few lines to tell her that she had left the city--“I’m sorry that I can’t be more definite about my plans. There’s nothing to worry you, mother. It’s quite all right and I’m not doing anything I shouldn’t. So please don’t worry about me. Only trust me, won’t you? I know you will.” She sent her love and for all her assurances on paper that she knew her mother would trust her she sealed it with a dubious look. In the letter to her father she was, if not more informative, at least more expansive. It was incoherent, reassuring, happy, sad--the kind of letter that carries with it great fear to the one who reads it and who sees how delicate the balance is on which the future is being weighed. Freda mailed the note to her father, left the one for her mother with Mrs. Miller and went to the station. Almost before she knew it the long train, with a jerk of its loose hung body had gathered itself together and moved out of the yards through the scattering, blackened railroad district. She watched the little houses and let her mind sink into a blur of remembrance and anticipation. She was going to Gregory. No more waiting for letters, no more dreams. Whatever it was that was to come, it was reality--something to feel and to do--not to wait for.