“Ach, Trina, ven shall I efer see you again?”

Tears came to Trina’s eyes in spite of herself.  She put her arms around her mother.

“Oh, sometime, sometime,” she cried.  The twins and Owgooste clung to Trina’s skirts, fretting and whimpering.

McTeague was miserable.  He stood apart from the group, in a corner.  None of them seemed to think of him; he was not of them.

“Write to me very often, mamma, and tell me about everything—­about August and the twins.”

“It is dime,” cried Mr. Sieppe, nervously.  “Goot-py, Trina.  Mommer, Owgooste, say goot-py, den we must go.  Goot-py, Trina.”  He kissed her.  Owgooste and the twins were lifted up.  “Gome, gome,” insisted Mr. Sieppe, moving toward the door.

“Goot-py, Trina,” exclaimed Mrs. Sieppe, crying harder than ever.  “Doktor—­where is der doktor—­Doktor, pe goot to her, eh? pe vairy goot, eh, won’t you?  Zum day, Dokter, you vill haf a daughter, den you know berhaps how I feel, yes.”

They were standing at the door by this time.  Mr. Sieppe, half way down the stairs, kept calling “Gome, gome, we miss der drain.”

Mrs. Sieppe released Trina and started down the hall, the twins and Owgooste following.  Trina stood in the doorway, looking after them through her tears.  They were going, going.  When would she ever see them again?  She was to be left alone with this man to whom she had just been married.  A sudden vague terror seized her; she left McTeague and ran down the hall and caught her mother around the neck.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered in her mother’s ear, sobbing.  “Oh, mamma, I—­I’m ’fraid.”

“Ach, Trina, you preak my heart.  Don’t gry, poor leetle girl.”  She rocked Trina in her arms as though she were a child again.  “Poor leetle scairt girl, don’ gry—­soh—­soh—­soh, dere’s nuttun to pe ’fraid oaf.  Dere, go to your hoasban’.  Listen, popper’s galling again; go den; goot-by.”

She loosened Trina’s arms and started down the stairs.  Trina leaned over the banisters, straining her eyes after her mother.

“What is ut, Trina?”

“Oh, good-by, good-by.”

“Gome, gome, we miss der drain.”

“Mamma, oh, mamma!”

“What is ut, Trina?”

“Good-by.”

“Goot-py, leetle daughter.”

“Good-by, good-by, good-by.”

The street door closed.  The silence was profound.

For another moment Trina stood leaning over the banisters, looking down into the empty stairway.  It was dark.  There was nobody.  They—­her father, her mother, the children—­had left her, left her alone.  She faced about toward the rooms—­faced her husband, faced her new home, the new life that was to begin now.

The hall was empty and deserted.  The great flat around her seemed new and huge and strange; she felt horribly alone.  Even Maria and the hired waiter were gone.  On one of the floors above she heard a baby crying.  She stood there an instant in the dark hall, in her wedding finery, looking about her, listening.  From the open door of the sitting-room streamed a gold bar of light.