As Jones reached the curb, Florence came forth as if on invisible wings. Jones caught her by the arm. She flung him aside with a strength he had not dreamed existed in her slim body.
"Florence, I am Jones!"
She stopped, recognized him, and without a word ran across the street to the automobile and climbed into the tonneau. Jones followed immediately.
"Home!"
The car shot up the dimly lighted street, shone palely for a second under the corner lamp, and vanished.
"Ah, child, child!" groaned the man at her side, all the tenseness gone from his body. He was Jones again.
Still she did not speak, but stared ahead with unseeing eyes.
No further reproach fell from the butler's lips. It was enough that God had guided him to her at the appointed moment. He felt assured that never again would she be drawn into any trap. Poor child! What had they said to her, done to her? How, in God's name, had she escaped from them who never let anybody escape? Presently she would become normal, and then she would tell him.
"I found the lying note. You dropped it."
"Horrible, horrible!" she said almost inaudibly.