"Why couldn't they trace her?" she asked.
"Because she was too cute to stick to her train. She must have jumped the express when they slowed up for their first stop."
The fugitive bulked large in Jean's meditations. It occurred to her that possibly the needless rigor of her own treatment in Cottage No. 6 might originate in her chance resemblance to Sophie Powell. She wondered how it fared with the girl; whether she had had to make her way unbefriended; to what she had turned her hand. Was she perhaps living a blameless life, respected, loved, in all ways another personality, yet forever hag-ridden with the fear of recapture? She did not debate whether such freedom were worth its cost, for just then the pungent invitation of the woods was borne to her across the lettuce-rows.
A bit of refuse crystallized her resolve. She spied it toward the end of her day's toil—a large rusty nail half protruding from the loam—and knew it instantly for the tool which should compass her release. Her mind acted on its hint with extraordinary lucidity, and her fingers were scarcely less nimble. Not even Amy at her side saw her slip the treasure trove into the concealing masses of her hair. From that moment till the bolts were shot upon her for the night she was absorbed in her plans.
To duplicate Sophie Powell's exploit was, of course, out of the question. Her own door was never left unlocked; the Holy Terror's graceless clothes, for all practical uses, might as well hang in another planet; while even were these impossibilities surmounted, she could scarcely hope to hoodwink the men at the gate. She must secure a disguise somehow, but she cheerfully left that detail to chance. To escape was the main thing, and if by a rusty nail she might cross that bridge, surely she need borrow no trouble lest her wits desert her afterward.
A tedious-toned clock over in the town struck twelve before she dared begin her attempt. The watchman had just gone beneath her window on his hourly round, and with the cessation of his slow pace upon the gravel the peace of midnight overlay everything. For almost two hours thereafter Jean labored with her rude implement at the staples which held the woven-wire barrier before her window. The first staple came hardest, but she had pried it loose by the time the watch repassed. In a half-hour more she had freed enough of the netting to serve her end, but she deferred the great moment till the man should again have come and gone. It was a difficult wait, centuries long, and anxiety began to cheat and befool her reason. She questioned whether she had not lost count of time. Suppose she had let him come upon her unheeded! Suppose he had caught some hint of her employment! Suppose he were even now lurking, spider-like, in the shadows!
Then the clock struck twice in its deliberative way, the measured footfall recurred, and her brain cleared. Five minutes later she bent back the netting and calculated the distance to the ground. She judged it some sixteen or eighteen feet, all told, or a sheer drop of more than half that space as she would hang by her finger-tips. There could be no leaving a telltale rope of bedclothes to dangle. Such folly would set the telephone wires humming within the hour. She must drop, and drop with good judgment; since the grass plot, which she counted upon to break her fall, gave place directly below to an area, grated over to be sure, but undesirable footing notwithstanding.
She tossed her brown shawl to the ground first, and noted, with some oddly detached segment of her mind, that it spread itself on the sward in the shape of a huge bat. A romping girlhood steadying her nerves, she let herself cautiously over the sill, and for an instant hung motionless, her eyes below. Then, gathering momentum from a double swing, she suddenly relaxed her hold, cleared the danger-point, and alighted, uninjured and almost without sound, upon the springing turf.
IV