Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/275

Rh Alliance. Her absence was not even noted until after breakfast on Monday. But she could not be aware of this, and all day long she flayed and whipped herself with lurid imaginings.

That Sunday journey left an everlasting impression upon Reba. The long forced hours of self-examination, self-condemnation, left tracks upon her soul. It was a hot, wilting sort of day, and the dust and cinders that blew into the open car-windows, her untidy hair (she had had no comb except her fingers), her soiled white shoes, soiled white gloves, added to her inner feeling of moral dilapidation. Her all-day fast, too, interrupted only by a banana from a fruit-store that chanced to be open in the second little town, and a package of pressed figs, and a cake of sweet chocolate from a news-stand in the only station along her route that offered any such luxury, did much toward weakening her spirit, as well as her body.

It was about half-past three in the afternoon, after she had been sitting for a long hour in a corner of a deserted ladies' waiting-room, staring fixedly into a shaft of sunshine, in which a myriad of dust motes scurried aimlessly about in a confused fashion, like the wreckage of her own hopes, she thought, that she roused herself and set out for a walk along the elm-shaded main street of the unfamiliar town. There was a whole hour and a half before her train was due.

She had not walked far when she came upon a little white-steepled church. Its doors were open. A service was taking place within, and its cool dark interior was inviting to Reba. She entered and sat down alone in a back seat. A small assembly was gathered in the church to observe holy communion. Reba