her teeth began to chatter as she turned to obey the
orders of the dusky official who had assumed command of her. Never had
she felt anything so bleak as the atmosphere of the station. Never in
her life had she been so lonely as she was while she hurried down the
long dim platform in the direction of a gate which looked as if it led
into a prison. She was chilled through; her skin felt as if it had
turned to india rubber; there was a sickening terror in her soul; and
she longed above all things to sit down on one of the inhospitable
tracks and burst into tears; but something stronger than impulse urged
her shivering body onward and controlled the twitching muscles about her
mouth. "In a few minutes I shall see Oliver. Oliver is ill and I am
going to him," she repeated over and over to herself as if she were
reciting a prayer.

Inside the station she declined the offer of breakfast, and was
conducted to the ferry, where she was obliged to run in order to catch
the boat that was just leaving. Seated on one of the long benches in the
saloon, with her bag at her feet and her umbrella grasped tightly in her
hand, she gazed helplessly at the other passengers and wondered if any
one of them would tell her what to do when she reached the opposite
side. The women, she thought, looked hard and harassed, and the men she
could not see because of the rows of newspapers behind which they were
hidden. Once her wandering gaze caught the eyes of a middle-aged woman
in rusty black, who smiled at her above the head of a sleeping child.

"That's a pretty woman," said a man carelessly, as he put down his
paper, and she realized that he was talking about her to his companion.
Then, as the terrible outlines of the city grew more distinct on the
horizon, he got up and strolled as carelessly past her to the deck. He
had spoken of her as indifferently as he might have spoken of the
weather.

As the tremendous battlements (which were not tremendous to any of the
other passengers) emerged slowly from the mist and cleft the sombre
low-hanging clouds, from which a few flakes of snow fell, her terror
vanished suddenly before the excitement which ran through her body. She
forgot her hunger, her loneliness, her shivering flesh, her benumbed and
aching feet. A sensation not unlike the one with which the rector had
marched into his first battle, fortified and exhilarated her. The
fighting blood of of her ancestors grew warm in her veins. New York
deve