Chapter 5

In the Depths of Woe.

Collin stood staring at Trudy. She had not loosened her clinching hold for an instant, and, before he had realized it, the last warning had been shouted, the plank had been withdrawn, and the Sandy Hook was moving off. And he stood on the pier.

Many emotions were rife in his good-looking, boyish face, but anger was chief among them.

"Trudy," he said, sharply, "what are you doing? What have you _done?_"

He looked after the moving boat.

Trudy tried to stop her shower of tears, and Collin could but look at her. It was a rare thing to see Trudy cry, and it was on his account she was crying.

"Well, what's the matter?" he demanded, gruffly enough. "You've got what you wanted, haven't you? What are you going to do now? What are you going to do with me? Tell me that!"

With a reckless laugh, Collin turned into the freight-office and threw himself down on a box in an unnoticed corner. And Trudy followed her prisoner.

"I saw you from up the beach, Collin," she said, "and I couldn't let you run away! How could I? That would have been the _worst!_ How could you have wanted to, Collin?"

"The worst! Worse than what?" snapped Collin. His head hung in his hands, and his eyes were sullenly lowered. "The worst has happened. You'd see things plain enough if you stood in my place, Trudy, and you'd feel! Do you want me to tell you just how things stand?" Collin asked, fiercely.

"You know only too well! I've lost my place because I was a fool, and worse than a fool! That Grand View business is all over town. More than one fellow has said 'Grand View' to me and snickered. It's got around worse than the thing was, too! Gus Morey told me he heard we'd started to steal the best horse and buggy in Conover's stables and got snapped up at Buxton. I've lost my place, and do you think I can get another, with a thing of _that_ sort hanging over my head? I guess not!

"I'll tell you the truth, Trudy," continued Collin. "I _have_ tried two or three places--and it was for your sake I did it--before I made up my mind to clear out. I'd have done anything. I tried to get something to do at the Riggs House; and I went up to the sawmill and the canning factory; and I got the same answer everywhere. They'd all heard the story, and they said they didn't want a boy with a recommendation of _that_ kind.

"Dolph Freeman's all right; it's all smooth enough for _him_," said Collin, grinding his heel. "I was bad enough, but I didn't do anything sneaking mean, the way he did. But _he_ isn't going to suffer for it; not a bit. His father's got money, and Dolph can go on loafing around town and getting other fellows into trouble. _He'll_ never get come up with.

"Well, I know it was my own fault, anyhow. Nobody could have got me into any trouble if I'd done the right way. But it's done, and look at me now. The whole town is down on me. And _mother_," said Collin, grimly--"mother's the worst! This thing has soured her till she hasn't a kind word or thought for me. She said she ought to turn me out of the house; that I was a torment and a disgrace to her, and she ought not to put up with me. I believe she'd be glad to be rid of me."

"Collin!" exclaimed Trudy, who was far from believing that.

"What else can I think? I _do_ believe it! And if she thinks that way now, what will she think when she reads the note I left for her? I couldn't face her, and tell her I'd taken that money, but she knows it by this time. And I'd like to know how I'm going to see her after that! She won't believe I meant to put it back; she won't believe anything; she's down on me, and I can't stand it!

"I can't stay here with everybody against me and no way to turn. The best thing I can do, and the only thing, is to take myself off; and I'm going to do it. I don't know what'll happen to me, nor what'll become of me. But I'm going. You've stopped me this time, whatever you did it for. I'm not worth your worrying, Trudy; I'll tell you that. But I'll go yet."

Trudy stood looking at her captive in more hopelessness than she would admit to herself. She knew that this, Collin's first serious trouble, had overwhelmed him till he had despaired.

She could see plainly enough the weakness of his arguments, and she foresaw the misery into which he was ready and anxious, in his despondency, to plunge.

But how to make _him_ see it? That was another matter, and one which staggered the faithful, anxious girl. To run away! What folly, and what sure ruin! But, if Collin would not see that hard truth?

Trudy's heart sank. She had gained her point, for once; but beyond that, which was little, would she prevail? Collin was young and headstrong and in the depths of woe, and what would, in spite of her, be the outcome, Trudy feared to think.

"Collin--Collin!" she was beginning, entreatingly, when hurrying steps on the pier-planks made her look up.

Rosalie Scott was coming towards them at a quick trot, looking this way and that, searchingly, till she saw Trudy.

"Well," she cried. "If I ever! What a girl you are! What _were_ you after? If I ever saw such a runner! I knew you could row, and now I know you can run. I thought you'd seen a ghost, or something worse. You'd have run the other way, though. Anyhow," said Rosalie, dropping down on a second box to get her breath, "I thought I'd see _what_ it was, and I didn't think you'd mind, if I did."

She looked from Trudy to Collin, with undisguised wonder. Collin only stared at her. Trudy smiled, but with quivering lips, and traces of her tears were plain.

"Why-y," Rosalie stammered. "Something's the matter!"

She was the picture of amazement and curiosity, and Collin could not help smiling. He was dazzled, too, by the gay apparition in the yellow-ribboned dress, the big, daisy-trimmed hat and the patent-leather shoes.

Neither he nor Trudy denied that something was the matter. Neither spoke.

"Well," said Rosalie, with the good-nature which was a part of her, though half-pouting, "I'm intruding, I suppose. I didn't think it was anything private, or--solemn."

Her bright eyes turned from one to the other, a funny twinkle in them.

Trudy could not speak, but Collin roused himself.

"I don't know what we're staying here for," he said, shortly. "I'd got started to take the boat, but Trudy stopped me. _That's_ what she was running for. The boat's gone, and we'd better go. I don't know what Trudy's going to do with me _now_. Maybe she knows."

He got up, his bundle sagging from a nerveless hand and his face dull, and they turned up the pier.

"You are in trouble," said Rosalie, soberly. "I'm sorry I came. That's the way I always do, you know. I do things before I think. And I'm sorry for _you_."

Collin made a husky sound of acknowledgment. To Trudy, he muttered:

"_I_ don't know where I'm going. I won't go home--I daren't."

And Trudy answered:

"Go to the Browns with me, then, Collin?"

But he shook his head.