"Hello, Hazel!" the girl said.
But they passed on. It seemed to Hazel that they quickened their pace
a trifle. It made her grit her teeth in resentful anger. Ten minutes
later she left the park and caught a car home. Once in her room she
broke down.
"Oh, I'll go mad if I stay here and this sort of thing goes on!" she
cried forlornly.
A sudden thought struck her.
"Why _should_ I stay here?" she said aloud. "Why? What's to keep me
here? I can make my living anywhere."
"But, no," she asserted passionately, "I won't run away. That would be
running away, and I haven't anything to be ashamed of. I will _not_
run."
Still the idea kept recurring to her. It promised relief from the hurt
of averted faces and coolness where she had a right to expect sympathy
and friendship. She had never been more than two hundred miles from
Granville in her life. But she knew that a vast, rich land spread
south and west. She was human and thoroughly feminine; loneliness
appalled her, and she had never suffered as Granville at large was
making her suffer.
The legal notice of the bequest was mailed to her. She tore up the
letter and threw it in the fire as if it were some poisonous thing.
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