"They'll never catch them," said Lucia Cosby; "they know all the roads too well. They know every road there is to know."
"I should think they did!" said Mrs. Dunstall. "They've not got out of practice walking in this locality, I can tell you. Josiah Bates was down at the bottom of the St. Helena hill the other day, and if he didn't see them there. Oh, they know the roads."
"I'm sorry for the girl," said Clay Wright Benton.
"I ain't a bit sorry for her," said Mrs. Ray; "as a woman who works from before dawn to far on into the night to make a honest living by eleven different kinds of sweat on her brow, I ain't a bit sorry for either of them. And Jack O'Neil ain't going to be sorry for them, either; he told me last night if they was men, he'd get hold of 'em and take 'em out behind the wood-pile and he knew what they'd get. To-day isn't going to alter his views."
"If I was Mrs. O'Neil, I'd wash that shawl Mrs. Lathbun wore all the time," said Sarah Catt, one of the party escorting Mary Cody back to the hotel.
"It's in the tub already," said Mary Cody.
Mrs. O'Neil came running forth to meet them, her brown eyes shining more than ever.
"Oh, but they were a 'foxy pair,'" she exclaimed; "haven't they gone and left that hair-brush done up in a paper so that it's 'baggage,' and shows they want the room held for them till they come back. Oh, they've got the law at their finger-tips—those two."
The whole crowd entered the house. Alva and Lassie, packing in their room, had heard the news ten minutes earlier from Mrs. O'Neil herself. Lassie had watched her friend's face curiously, but Alva had too much else pressing upon her to be more than simply saddened.
When Mrs. O'Neil had gone Lassie had said almost hesitatingly: "They were adventuresses, weren't they, and Miss Lathbun's romance wasn't true, was it?"