Ellen rose without a word, and fled out of the room and out of the house.

It seemed to her, after what had happened, after what her mother and grandmother had said and insinuated, after what she herself had thought and felt, that she must.

She longed to see Robert Lloyd, to hear him speak, as she had never longed for anything in the world, and yet she ran away as if she were driven to obey some law which was coeval with the first woman and beyond all volition of her individual self.
When she reached the head of the little cross street on which the Atkinses lived, she turned into it with relief.

The Atkins house was a tiny cottage, with a little kitchen ell, and a sagging piazza across the front.

On this piazza were shadowy figures, and the dull, red gleam of pipes, and one fiery tip of a cigar.