"Yes, he saw Florry. He went again—Mrs. Price was buying several dresses. After that second visit he waited one night at the side door used for employees and spoke to her. I can't condone what she did, but I can say in extenuation that she was very young, very inexperienced, that she knew who Mr. Price was, and that she had never in her life met a man of his attractions.
"She didn't hide it from me, was frank and outspoken about the meeting and his subsequent attentions. For he saw her often after that, took her for walks on Sunday, sent her theater tickets and books. I was filled with anxiety, besought of her to give it up, but she wouldn't, she couldn't. Before I went to Grasslands I realized a situation was developing that made me sick with apprehension. She was in love, madly in love. I couldn't reason with her, I couldn't make her listen to me; she was blind and deaf to anything but him and what he said.
"I went to Mr. Price and implored him to leave her alone. I had to catch him as I could—in the halls, at odd moments in the library, for he hated the scenes I made and tried to avoid me. He assured me that he meant no harm, that her position was hard and he was sorry for her. I threatened to tell Mrs. Janney, and he said I could if I wanted, that he would soon be done with them all and didn't care. I saw then that he too, like Florry, was growing indifferent to everything but the hours when they were together—that he was in love.
"That was the situation when I went to Grasslands. It was much worse there—I couldn't see her often, I was in ignorance of how things were going with her, for her letters told me little. It was unbearable, and I went into town whenever I could; all the extra holidays were asked for so that I could go into the city and see how Florry was getting on. On one of these visits she told me something that, at the time, I paid little attention to, setting it down as one of her passing fancies; she was interested in the working girls' unions. At Camille's and in the boarding house she had fallen in with a group of girls of Socialistic beliefs and, through them, had met their organizers and backers. She was much more deeply involved than I guessed. Her fearlessness, her ardor for anything new and exciting, making her a valuable addition to their ranks. It carried her far, to the edge of tragedy."
She turned to Mr. Janney:
"Do you remember, Mr. Janney, one morning early in July, how I read you an account of a strike riot among the shirtwaist makers when one of the girls stabbed a policeman with a hatpin?"
The old man nodded:
"Yes, vaguely. I have a dim memory of arguing about it with you."
"That was the time. Well, that girl was Florry. She lost her head completely, stabbed the man, and in the tumult that followed, managed to get away through the hall of a tenement house. She was hidden by friends of hers, Russian socialists called Rychlovsky. I have met them; they seem decent, kindly people, and they certainly were very good to her. When I read you the article I had no more idea that the girl was Florry than you had. It was not until the next morning that I received a letter from her, telling me what she had done and where she was.
"She wrote two letters, one to me and one to Mr. Price. He had told her that he would spend his week-ends with the Hartleys at Cedar Brook and she sent his there. Mine was delivered on the morning of July the seventh but he did not get his until the same evening when he came to Cedar Brook from the city. Each of us acted as promptly as we could, but he went to her before I did, going in that night in his car.