Nell had disappeared, along with everybody else when the police raided the Temple. Peter never knew what had become of her, but the old longings still haunted him, and he would find himself imagining—suppose the police had got her; suppose she were in jail, and he with his new “pull” were able to get her out, and carry her away and keep her hid from the laundry man!
These were dreams; but meantime here was reality, here was a new world. Peter had settled down in the home of the Todd sisters; and what was their attitude toward these awful mysteries of love?
Section 17
It had been arranged with Guffey that at the end of a week Peter was to have a secret meeting with one of the chief detective’s men. So Peter told the girls that he was tired of being a prisoner in the house and must get some fresh air.
“Oh please, Mr. Gudge, don’t take such a chance!” cried Sadie, her thin, anxious face suddenly growing more anxious and thin. “Don’t you know this house is being watched? They are just hoping to catch you out alone. It would be the last of you.”
“I’m not so important as that,” said Peter; but she insisted that he was, and Peter was pleased, in spite of his boredom, he liked to hear her insist upon his importance.
“Oh!” she cried. “Don’t you know yet how much depends on you as a witness for the Goober defense? This case is of concern to millions of people all over the world! It is a test case, Mr. Gudge—are they to be allowed to murder the leaders of the working class without a struggle? No, we must show them that there is a great movement, a world-wide awakening of the workers, a struggle for freedom for the wage slaves—”
But Peter could stand no more of this. “All right,” he said, suddenly interrupting Sadie’s eloquence. “I suppose it’s my duty to stay, even if I die of consumption, being shut up without any fresh air.” He would play the martyr; which was not so hard, for he was one, and looked like one, with his thin, one-sided little figure, and his shabby clothes. Both Sadie and Jennie gazed at him with admiration, and sighed with relief.