She could not--at least she did not--dream that Lovin Child, at once her comfort and her strongest argument for a new chance at happiness, would in ten minutes or so wipe out all thought of Bud and leave only a dumb, dreadful agony that hounded her day and night.
She had reached Alpine early in the forenoon, and had gone to the one little hotel, to rest and gather up her courage for the search which she felt was only beginning.

She had been too careful of her money to spend any for a sleeper, foregoing even a berth in the tourist car.

She could make Lovin Child comfortable with a full seat in the day coach for his little bed, and for herself it did not matter.

She could not sleep anyway.

So she sat up all night and thought, and worried over the future which was foolish, since the future held nothing at all that she pictured in it.
She was tired when she reached the hotel, carrying Lovin Child and her suit case too--porters being unheard of in small villages, and the one hotel being too sure of its patronage to bother about getting guests from depot to hall bedroom.