" She had never really
meant it before; but now, as she considered her case, no other course
seemed open. She had never learned any trade that would have given her
independence in a strange place, and she knew no one in the big towns of
the valley, where she might have hoped to find employment. Miss Hatchard
was still away; but even had she been at North Dormer she was the last
person to whom Charity would have turned, since one of the motives
urging her to flight was the wish not to see Lucius Harney. Travelling
back from Nettleton, in the crowded brightly-lit train, all exchange of
confidence between them had been impossible; but during their drive
from Hepburn to Creston River she had gathered from Harney's snatches of
consolatory talk--again hampered by the freckled boy's presence--that
he intended to see her the next day. At the moment she had found a vague
comfort in the assurance; but in the desolate lucidity of the hours that
followed she had come to see the impossibility of meeting him again.
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