"I'm up in London with father for the weekend. We want you to come with us to the Abbey to-morrow. And you must come back with us to Bursley on Monday. You _must_! We're quite set on it. I've left father all alone this afternoon, to come up here and find you out. Not that he minds! What a way it is! But how are you, Hilda?" Hilda was so touched by Janet's affectionate solicitude that her eyes filled with tears. She looked at that radiating and innocent goodness, and thought: "How different I am from her! She hasn't the least idea how different I am!" For a moment, Janet seemed to her to be a sort of angel--modish, but exquisitely genuine. She saw in the invitation to the Five Towns a miraculous defence against a peril the prospect of which was already alarming her. She would be compelled to go to Turnhill in order to visit Lessways Street and decide what of her mother's goods she must keep. She would of course take Janet with her. In all the Turnhill affairs Janet should accompany her. Her new life should begin under the protection of Janet's society. And her heart turned from the old life towards the new with hope and a vague brightening expectation of happiness. At the Cedars she led Janet to her bedroom, and then came out of the bedroom to bid good-bye to George Cannon. The extreme complexity of existence and of her sensations baffled and intimidated her. CHAPTER III JOURNEY TO BLEAKRIDGE I Hilda and Janet were mounting the precipitous Sytch Bank together on their way from Turnhill into Bursley. It was dark; they had missed one train at Turnhill and had preferred not to wait for the next. Although they had been very busy in Hilda's house throughout all the afternoon and a part of the evening, and had eaten only a picnic meal, neither of them was aware of fatigue, and the two miles to Bursley seemed a trifle.