Passengers stared at her covertly, as though fascinated by that look, and
some tried to fathom it. But her eyes were firmly fixed upon a point far
beyond their vision. The car stopped many times, and flew on again, but
nothing seemed to break her absorption.

At last she was aroused by the touch of the conductor on her sleeve. The
people were beginning to file out of the car, and the train was under the
shadow of the snow-covered sheds in the station of the state capital.
Cynthia recognized the place, though it was cold and bare and very
different in appearance from what it had been on the summer's evening
when she had come into it with her father. That, in effect, had been her
first glimpse of the world, and well she recalled the thrill it had given
her. The joy of such things was gone now, the rapture of holidays and new
sights. These were over, so she told herself. Sorrow had quenched the
thrills forever.

The kind conductor led her to the eating room, and when she would not eat
his concern drew greater than ever. He took a strange interest in this
young lady who had such a face and such eyes. He pointed her out to his
friend the Truro conductor, and gave him some sandwiches and fruit which
he himself had bought, with instructions to press them on her during the
afternoon.

Cynthia could not eat. She hated this place, with its memories. Hated it,
too, as a mart where men were bought and sold, for the wording of those
articles ran in her head as though some priest of evil were chanting them
in her ears. She did not remember then the sweeter aspect of the old
town, its pretty homes set among their shaded gardens--homes full of good
and kindly people. State House affairs were far removed from most of
these, and the sickness and corruption of the body politic. And this