"I have no chance if I do not get the dress," she said to herself. "I wonder if Mollie would help me. What is to be done?"
She was too impatient and perturbed to wait for Mrs. Keith. She went out into the street. A hansom was slowly passing. She raised her en-tout-cas to stop the driver. The man drew up to the pavement. The girl got into the hansom. As she did so her foot kicked against something hard. She gave the man the direction of a gay shop in Sloane Street. She intended to buy gloves and a fresh ribbon for her fan there. The man whipped up his horse, and she stooped to see what the hard object was. It was a purse made of Russian leather. She opened it, and saw, to her wonder and delight, that it contained bank notes and gold. Tremblingly she laid it on the seat by her side. But it seemed to sting her as it lay so close and yet so far. She could not get away from the fascination of it. There were a great terror and a great sense of relief all over her.
"What does this mean?" she said to herself. "Oh, of course I ought to give it to the driver, and tell him that somebody has left it here. But why should I? I wonder how much is in it?"
She took it up, and saw further, to her astonishment, that there were letters printed in silver on the outside. The letters might have stood for her own name—"K.H."
"More and more marvellous!" thought the girl.
She opened the purse now, and tumbled the contents into her lap. Altogether there was over a hundred pounds within—about twenty-nine pounds in gold, the rest in notes. Notes are dangerous things to deal with when one wants to be a thief. But Kitty did not think of anything so dreadful as the word "thief" just now. With a hundred pounds she could appease Madame Dupuys; she could get her dress in time for the ball—she could see a way out of her difficulties. Not yet did her conscience prick her; not for an instant did she feel remorse. She would do it. Was it Providence that had put this purse in her way, or was it— She did not wait even to think out the remainder of the sentence. She poked her parasol through the roof of the hansom.
"I want you to go back to 340 Bond Street," she said to the man.
He turned his hansom at once. When they reached the house, Kitty got out, rang the bell, and asked to see Madame Dupuys. The girl who opened the door to her brought her upstairs at once, and in two minutes' time she was in madame's presence.
"Here," said the girl, panting as she spoke, "if I give you a hundred pounds now, will you give me a week or ten days longer to pay the remainder?"
"I will give you six weeks exactly, Miss Hepworth," replied the dressmaker.