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 to Albany. But here the houses were built closely together, forming a fine residential section. She came, then, to the stark ruins of Trinity Church, which had been burned almost to the ground some months before in the great New York fire when so many families had been made homeless that the town had had to erect tents to care for the sufferers. Now, just a few of the massive walls stood, a dark mass above the glimmering ghostliness of the old graveyard. As she gazed, an idea came to Charity. Why not hide behind those walls? They would act as windshields and protect her from enemy eyes! On the morrow something might turn up, she might find trace of Young Cy, but for to-night they would be just the place for her!

The cold and the darkness, to say nothing of the ghostly proximity of the gravestones, might well have appalled an even stouter heart than Charity's; but for all her gentleness and quiet, she had a certain grim tenacity in her make-up, partly inherited from her strong-willed parents, partly developed by these last war-filled months. She had made up her mind not to leave New York, not to try to escape to New Jersey until she could carry home tidings of poor Young Cy!

It was not as cold as she had dreaded inside the church ruins. Still, it was a dreary enough bed that she spread with her cape upon a great block of stone in one corner of the ruined church, and little sleep was forthcoming that night.

At last the darkness fled before the lantern of the sun and dawn found Charity stumbling stiffly to her feet.