Her mother knew that she had not fainted. She was sick, too, and blamed Kedzie for the scene. She spurned the girl with her foot and said: “You get right up off that floor this minute. Do you hear?” Kedzie's soul came back. It had made its decision. It gathered her body together and lifted it up to its knees and then erect, while the lips said, “All right, momma.” She groped her way into the bathroom and washed her face, and straightened her hair and came forth, a dazed and pallid thing. She took up the valise her father gave her and followed her mother out, pausing to pass her eyes about the beautiful room and the window where the peaks of splendor were. Then she walked out, and her father locked the door. Kedzie saw that the elevator-boy saw that she had been crying, but what was one shame extra? She had no pride left now, and no father and no mother, no anybody. Adna refused the offices of the pages who clutched at the baggage. He went to the cashier and paid the blood-money with a grin of hate. Then he gathered up his women and his other baggage and set out for the station. He would leave all the baggage there while he hunted a place to stop. They could not find the tunnelway, but debouched on the street. Crossing Vanderbilt Avenue was a problem for village folk heavy laden. The taxicabs were hooting and scurrying. Adna found himself in the middle of the street, entirely surrounded by demoniac motors. His wife wanted to lie down there and die. Adna dared neither to go nor to stay. Suddenly a chauffeur of an empty limousine, fearing to lose a chance to swear at a taxi-driver, kept his head turned to the left and steered straight for the spot where the Thropps awaited their doom. Adna had his wife pendent from one arm and a valise or two from the other. Kedzie carried a third valise. Her better than normal shoulders were sagged out of line by its weight. When Adna saw the motor coming he had to choose between dropping his valise or his wife. Characteristically, he saved his valise. In spite of his wife's squawking and tugging on his left arm, he achieved safety under the portico of the Grand Central Terminal. He looked about for Kedzie. She was not to be seen. Adna saw the taxicab pass over the valise she had carried. It left no trace of Kedzie. Her annihilation was uncanny. He gaped. “Where's Kedzie?” Mrs. Thropp screamed. A policeman checked the traffic with uplifted hand. Adna ran to him. Mrs. Thropp told him what had happened. “I saw the goil drop the bag and beat it for the walk,” said the officer. “Which way'd she go?” “She lost herself in the crowd,” said the officer. “She was scared out of her wits,” Mrs. Thropp sobbed. The officer shook his head. “She was smilin' when I yelled at her. It looks to me like a get-away.” “A runaway?” Mrs. Thropp gasped. “Yes'm. I'd have went after her, but I was cut off by a taxi.”