The crowd outside waited and raged on against the foreman, but finding at last that he did not mean to come out again that night they at length dispersed.
"We must get away from here to-morrow," said Rutter when they went upstairs. "I've bought a house a little way out, and we'll get into it at once. I shall send to say I am ill and can't go to work in the morning, and we'll be away before those fellows get back at night."
"But the woman's coming to wash in the morning," said Mrs. Rutter in some dismay, for she did not like being taken from all her friends.
"If the woman's coming, she can help you pack up. But you need not let her know where we are going, for these rough fellows are not easy to manage when they are in a rage, and I don't want them to find out where I am going."
So when Mrs. Chaplin came the next morning, she heard to her dismay that her work for the future would be lessened, for it was scarcely likely that she would be able to get another day's washing in the neighbourhood.
Another thing, she had known Mrs. Rutter a long time. They used to be friends when they first came to the neighbourhood. She had felt inclined to envy her friend's good fortune when the improvement in their circumstances first took place, but she soon began to see that somehow riches did not bring happiness or content to the Rutters, and she often pitied the poor woman more now than when they were both struggling to make ends meet, as they did sometimes in those old days.
Since then they had been getting steadily poorer and the Rutters richer, but the more anxious and unhappy as it seemed to Mrs. Chaplin. She helped with the packing all day and saw the furniture put into the van, but as Mrs. Rutter was not allowed to know where they were going, she could not tell her friend, much as she might wish to do so.
When she got home, another piece of news awaited her.
Annie Brown, who insisted upon coming in to see Winny sometimes, burst into the room just after she got back, exclaiming: "I say Mrs. Chaplin, Rutter has bought this house and is going to raise all the rents!"
"Nonsense!" replied Mrs. Chaplin. "I should have heard about that, if it had been true, for I have been working there to-day."