“I am going now, but not that I’m afraid of you, nor that policeman, either, only for your mother’s sake, because it would break her heart to know that her shameless child was still alive. But you will hear from me again—remember that, my saucy madam, and live in fear of my vengeance.”
“I am not in the least afraid of you, and I am going to call that policeman this minute,” Pansy answered, walking briskly away; and, to her joy, Mr. Finley turned and walked quickly off, going out of the square at a gate directly opposite.
“He is a coward, despite his threats, and he will not trouble me again, I hope,” she murmured, leaving the square and going quickly toward home with no other drawback, except meeting several factory girls going home from work whose faces were perfectly familiar to her, and who had not forgotten hers, either, for one nudged the other and exclaimed audibly:
“Good gracious, the very image of poor Pansy Laurens!”
Pansy’s heart gave a wild throb, and she hurried past the girls, thinking:
“I ought never to have come back here. I am not changed as I thought I was. Every one knows my face, and I fear trouble will come of it yet. Suppose I were to meet my mother, or sisters, for instance, and they were to claim me, I do not believe I could be brave enough to deny my identity.”
That night she begged her husband to hurry up his business, that he might take her away from the city.
“It is so warm and sultry here that I am almost afraid I shall fall ill if I stay,” she said; and he, remembering her headache of a few days before, took alarm at once.
“It is very vexatious, this law business. My sister’s affairs were in a terribly tangled condition, and I’m afraid it will be several days yet before I can get away,” he said; then, smiling and encircling the graceful figure with his arm, he added; “But that is no reason, my darling, that you and Juliette should remain here. Both of you are quite ready to go, you say. Then why not start to White Sulphur to-morrow, and let me follow when I get through my task here?”
Her heart leaped with joy, then she inwardly chided herself for her eagerness to leave him.