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.”