Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Monica) Brame
page 3 of 95 (03%)
page 3 of 95 (03%)
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"Where to?" she repeated. "Where does the train stop?"
"It will stop at Chester and Crewe." "Then give me a ticket for Crewe," she said, and, with a smile on his face, the clerk complied. She took the ticket and he gave her the change. She swept it into her purse with an absent, preoccupied manner, and he turned with a smile to one of his fellow-clerks, touching his forehead significantly. "She is evidently on the road for Colney Hatch," he observed. "If I had said the train would stop at Liliput, in my opinion she would have said, 'Give me a ticket for there.'" But the object of his remarks, all unconscious of them, had gone on to the platform. With the same appearance of not wishing to be seen, she looked into the carriages. There was one almost empty; she entered it, took her seat in the corner, drew her veil still more closely over her face, and never raised her eyes. A quarter past three; the bell rings loudly. There is a shrill whistle, and then, slowly at first, the train moves out of the station. A few minutes more, and the long walls, the numerous arches, are all left behind, and they are out in the blinding sunlight, hurrying through the clear, golden day as though life and death depended upon its speed. On, on, past the green meadows, where the hedgerows were filled with woodbines and wild roses, and the clover filled the air with fragrance; past gray old churches whose tapering spires pointed to heaven; past |
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