“That’s a place I would like to go to,” said Mr. Proudleigh. “I would like to see de King. Howsoever, ef he protect Jamaica people in Colon, you an’ Miss Susan will be all right there.”
Then the talk drifted to other subjects, and Mr. Proudleigh made no further attempts to persuade Jones to remain.
The days flew by quickly. During the last week that she was to remain in Kingston Susan busied herself in going round to her debtors and letting them know that Catherine would collect the moneys due to her, in going to see her friends to bid them good-bye, and in going for long car rides in the evenings with Jones. It was when she was returning from one of these rides one night that she stopped suddenly and looked back at a woman who was walking slowly at some distance behind her.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jones.
“Nothing,” she replied. “I thought I did know that person back of us; but I can’t see her face. I must be mistaken.” But that night after Jones had left she said to Catherine:
“Kate, y’u know who I could swear I thought I saw in the lane to-night?”
“Who?” asked Kate.
“Mother Smith. As I was coming down, I pass a person that look familiar. An’ something say to me, ‘Turn back.’ An’ when I look back, the person seem to be Mother Smith, but I wasn’t sure; an’ as Sam was wid me I couldn’t go up to her.”
“But what is Mother Smith doin’ here?” asked Catherine. “Maria was with ’er?”
“No. P’rhaps it wasn’t her, after all. If it was ’er, she must ’ave been walkin’ this way to see what sort o’ young man Sam is, for Hezekiah must ’ave told her an’ her big-mouth daughter that I going to Colon. I hope she see what she come to see! Thank God! She can’t interfere wid me any more—the old wretch!” Then she dismissed Mother Smith from her mind.