"Were you now? Well, don't you think that by waiting for the police to take you here you'll be doing her a good turn, or her mother, or her father, nor yet none of them. You did 'em a bad enough turn by coming here at all; you don't want to make it worse, as you would do if the police was to take you in this house. It'll be all about it in the papers--how you was staying here, and how they was friends of yours, and no end; and gentlefolks don't like to have it known that they're friends of such as you; it gives the place a bad name; I shouldn't be surprised if nobody never came near it again--see?" Dorothy did see. The idea had been in her head from the first; the speaker expressed it in a form which added to its force. "You're quite right; that's what I've felt all along; I'll go at once." She moved towards the door, as if with the intention of putting her words into instant execution. The girl caught her by the arm, this time before Dorothy had a chance to prevent her. "Where are you going? What do you think you're doing?" "I am going to leave the house. Please--please let go of my arm." The girl only tightened her grip, until the pressure hurt. "What, down the stairs and through the front door--is that the way you're going? Why, you might as well stay where you are as do that." "Which other way can I go? Please--please release my arm; you're hurting me." The girl paid no heed to her request. "Why, if you was to go down the stairs someone would be sure to see you, and as likely as not they'd stop you; it isn't many as would throw away a hundred pounds like I'm a-doing. And if they was to let you go out of the house it would be almost the same; if them police was to ask them if they'd seen you they'd be bound to say they had. Cause why? They might get into trouble themselves if they was to say they hadn't; it's not easy to deal with them police in a job like this; you don't know the risk I'm running in acting as your friend. What you want is not to do the family a worse turn than you've done 'em already; so what you've got to do is to get off the place without their knowing anything about it, nor anyone else neither; because, of course, I don't count. Very well, then; the stairs is no good for that, nor yet the front door; the only way's the window." Dorothy thought of the window in that private sitting-room in "The Bolton Arms." She shut her eyes, and shivered. The girl mistook the cause of the other's evident disturbance. "Don't you be afraid, there's no call for you to go shivering; why, I felt you right up my arm. It's no distance from this window to the ground; why, it's nothing of a drop, to say nothing of there being a flower bed, what's pretty nearly as soft as a feather bed, for you to drop upon. If you haven't noticed come here and I'll show you." She made as if she proposed to drag Dorothy to the window, _nolens volens_, for she still retained her grasp on her arm. But Dorothy stood fast.