She sank to her knees, then relaxed on the floor in a half sitting posture, her head thrown back against the bed, her hat awry, one hand holding the ache of her bleeding wrist, the glow from the street lamp bewildering her eyes. * * * * * Mr. Price, gruff and solemn, tried to hasten the departure. "Well, Winifred, you're ready?" His smoky eyes were everywhere and on no one. He waved the hand that held his hat. Winnie had on a new cloak and a pretty little blue straw turban.... Laurie will be angry when he sees Mother has been buying me clothes. "Bobby--Bobby, my darling!" She hugged him to her, trying to wring from him some assurance that she would be with him when she was gone. Allowing himself to be kissed, he stirred an instant and was calm. He was water, broad and profound. Winnie felt herself sinking into his passive depths. "Oh, Bobby!" "You hurts my arm." She drew away from him and felt part of her still there, lost in his passive clearness. "You won't forget Mamma? Mamma Farley will help you write me letters. You know how you can print--nice printing with pictures? I'm going to bring you something beautiful. Grandma Price and I are going to bring you something--oh, lovely!" "Yes, my dear. We'll have something nice for a good little boy who doesn't forget us." Mrs. Price touched his hair with taut, wistful gestures. Winnie's cheeks were bright. Mrs. Price had on a trim black traveling suit of handsome cloth and a simple but distinguished hat, very precisely worn. "Is Laurie upstairs, Mamma Farley?" Mrs. Farley looked up, abstracted. She dangled in the general emotion like a puppet suspended over a torrent, swayed but unmoved. "I think so, dear." She tried not to see Mrs. Price, so like herself but lifted up by social confidence. "I'm going up to see him." "All right, dear." "Nine o'clock," Mr. Price said sternly, taking out his watch and looking at it with an air of reprimand. "Just a moment, Father." Winnie ran up the long dingy stairs to the door of her room. It was open and before she entered she saw Laurence standing in the confusion of packing which she had left, and looking at a book. When she stood beside him he glanced up carefully. His lips were drawn. She thought he smiled at her as if she were a stranger. "Off?" She was breathing quickly, her eyes shining at him reproachfully through her fluff of hair under the new hat. The gas light to one side made his hair glossy and threw shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. "Aren't you going to the train, Laurie?" "Don't you think the family will be happier if I am not there to spoil the rapport of departure?" Smiling, he stared at her with his hard, pained eyes. She had the feeling that he was a long way off. She felt sorry for herself. "Oh, Laurie, please have some pity for me! Don't be nasty tonight." "It's pity for you that keeps me here, my dear girl."