The dray stopped before a small house. The drayman unlocked the door, carried in, and with small ceremony, dumped her clothing and furnishings on the floor. Then he climbed on his wagon and drove away without having spoken a word. Marcia closed the door behind him, and from force of habit, turned the key. She had been riding through the night until her eyes were accustomed to the darkness. She had no provision for light, but through the uncurtained windows she could see enough to distinguish the mattress of her bed. As she was desperately tired, she pulled it to a bare spot upon the floor, hunted a pillow, and lying down in her clothing, covered her shoulders with her coat, and mental strain culminated in the blessed surcease of tears. Marcia whimpered to the darkness: “What had I to do with it? What is fair or just about treating me like this?” And again: “Where in the world can Jason have gone? I didn’t think he’d have the spunk. He might have killed him.” And later: “After the wreck of my life, after all the lies he’s told me—to be cast off among strangers like this—I might have known!” Then a last sobbing breath: “I did know. It’s been coming for a long time. This is only a poor excuse—I did know!” She was awakened in the morning by a burning ray of sunlight falling on her face. At first she was too dazed to realize where she was or how she came to be there. Slowly she arose and went to a window. She saw that she was on a pretty street of a village, the outskirts of which gave promise of being more attractive than had been her corresponding location in Ashwater. Turning slowly, she went through the small house. There were only three rooms, but they were much more attractive than the rooms in which she had been living. Mechanically she began picking up the expensive furnishings of her private room that had been hurriedly bundled together and dumped roughly anywhere there was space to drop them. In working at this business a few minutes, she collected her thoughts and remembered that she had been through tense excitement and nerve strain. She was dreadfully hungry. Through no fault of her own that she could recall, she had been picked up in one place and set down in another as if she were a piece of furniture instead of a woman endowed with some degree of intelligence. She had not been asked whether she would go, or, if she must move, where she wanted to locate. She had not been given time to exercise any care with the really beautiful things which had furnished her personal room. She had only a small sum in her purse. There was no one in Bluffport with whom she was acquainted. For over fifteen years she had cared for Jason. She had become accustomed to him. One of the very greatest fights of her difficult life had been to keep herself from becoming fond of him. The threat that he would be taken from her any day had been constant. Dimly she had realized for a long time that this hour was coming; and now it had arrived.