“If we reached England unsuspected—if we could lose ourselves in London—”
“Never could we go back to Hawthorn—nor to the town!”
“No.”
“Six years.... Gilbert, would we not be safe anywhere else?”
“Ours are matters in which no one is safe who thinks not as his neighbours. And say we slipped silent and down-bent through life, giving no present authority offence—yet at some corner comes one who recognizes face or voice and recalls the past—’Ha, you hide!’ And it is all to do again.... I do not think we have any choice. I do not think this captain will leave us here.... There have been men who, under feigned names and away from the place of blackest threatening, have lived long and peacefully.... At first, until we were free of enquiries and had found work by which we might live, there would be thick danger.... We might escape.”
“It is best to be with your kind.”
“Yes, it is best. The world grows so.”
“Oh, to see green grass and English flowers!... But the child—the child! We would go farther and farther from where the child lies.... I know that we must go.”
“Yes. She does not lie there. She does not stay there.”