Later, when they returned home, she would serve as the topic of many conversations.

Everybody looked askance at everybody else.

To escape one phase of loneliness she had plunged into another, so vast that her courage sometimes faltered.
She recalled how she had stretched out her arms toward the magic blue horizon.

Just beyond there would be her heart's desire.

And in these crowded four weeks, what had she learned?
That all horizons were lies: that smiles and handshakes and goodbyes and welcomes were lies: that there were really no to-morrows, only a treadmill of to-days: and that out of these lies and mirages she had plucked a bitter truth--she was alone.
She turned her cheek to the cold sill; and by and by the sill grew warm and wet with tears.