She sat up with sudden energy, pushing the dark hair from her face. "I hope I never see him again!" she said fiercely. "I hope he never comes home any more!..." CHAPTER VI Faith went back to the factory the next day and asked to be taken on again. Miss Dell would like to have refused, but she met Peg's fierce eyes across the room and changed her mind, and Faith was reinstated. There was not much time for talking that morning. There was a rush of work on hand and hardly a moment to spare, but during the dinner hour Peg asked a storm of questions. "What has happened? He's not coming back, of course! What a brute! Didn't I always say he was a brute?" Faith shivered. There were moments when she still clung passionately to the hope that there was some mistake--that when he came back he would be able to explain and put matters right. And there were other times when she shrank from the very thought of him, and only wished to be able to forget those few days of delirium. She would not even confide in Peg. All she would do was to beg her to ask no questions. "It's all over and done with," she said tremblingly. "You said he would not come back. I hope he never will." "I said I should not be at all surprised if he didn't," Peg answered. "But, of course, he may do. Sometimes in novelettes the villain of the story turns out to be the hero after all, you know." Faith did not think it was at all likely in this case, and the days began slowly to creep away. When a fortnight had gone and the seventeenth day drew near, panic closed about her heart. Supposing he came after all? She had had no word from him, and she hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. Perhaps it meant that he never would come back. She wished she could believe this. At other times, lying awake at night in her little room with its sloping roof, against her will she was forced to remember every word the Beggar Man had said to her, every kindly action that he had done, and there was always a great unanswered question in her mind. "Why did he marry me if he was bad, as they say he is? He need not have married me. There are heaps of other girls in the world." Mr. Shawyer wrote and begged her to go and see him, but she neither went nor answered the letter. She spent as much of her time with Peg as possible, and the elder girl once more resumed her role of friend and protector. "If you're worrying about that good-for-nothing!" she said to Faith one day in her blunt manner, "you're a little fool. There are as good fish in the sea as any that were caught, my girl, and don't you make any mistake. Let old Scammel stay in America. Jolly good riddance, I say!"