"I can't stay here with everybody against me and no way to turn. The
best thing I can do, and the only thing, is to take myself off; and I'm
going to do it. I don't know what'll happen to me, nor what'll become of
me. But I'm going. You've stopped me this time, whatever you did it for.
I'm not worth your worrying, Trudy; I'll tell you that. But I'll go
yet."

Trudy stood looking at her captive in more hopelessness than she would
admit to herself. She knew that this, Collin's first serious trouble,
had overwhelmed him till he had despaired.

She could see plainly enough the weakness of his arguments, and she
foresaw the misery into which he was ready and anxious, in his
despondency, to plunge.

But how to make _him_ see it? That was another matter, and one which
staggered the faithful, anxious girl. To run away! What folly, and what
sure ruin! But, if Collin would not see that hard truth?

Trudy's heart sank. She had gained her point, for once; but beyond that,
which was little, would she prevail? Collin was young and headstrong and
in the depths of woe, and what would, in spite of her, be the outcome,
Trudy feared to think.

"Collin--Collin!" she was beginning, entreatingly, when hurrying steps
on the pier-planks made her look up.

Rosalie Scott was coming towards them at a quick trot, looking this way
and that, searchingly, till she saw Trudy.