"I don't talk like one," said Connie.
"No; but then, yer needn't speak. Oh lor'! I suppose that's Agnes a-poundin' at the door. Oh, stand back, child, and I'll go to her."
Mrs. Warren opened the door, and Agnes stepped in.
"I ha' took French leave," she said. "I dunno wot they'll say at the factory, but yere I be. You promised, you know, Mrs. Warren, ma'am, as I shouldn't 'ave naught to do with factory life, niver no more."
"You needn't," said Mrs. Warren. "I ha' a deal o' work for yer to get through; but come along into my bedroom and we'll talk over things."
Mrs. Warren and Agnes disappeared into the bedroom of the former, Mrs. Warren having first taken the precaution to lock the sitting-room door and put the key into her pocket. Poor Connie felt more than ever that she was a prisoner. More than ever did she long for the old life which she had lived. Notwithstanding her father's drinking bouts, notwithstanding his cruelty and neglect, the free life, the above-board life—even the dull, dull factory life—were all as heaven compared to this terrible, mysterious existence in Mrs. Warren's comfortable rooms.