Love stories; Reformatories -- Fiction; Social classes -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Then came smoother work still. Sophie hadn't a cent--she missed the
matron's purse in her hurry--but she had her nerve along. She streaked
it over into town, and asked her way to the priest who comes out here
twice a month for confession. She banked on his not remembering her,
for she wasn't one of his girls; and he didn't. His sight was poor,
anyhow. Well, she told him she was a Catholic and a stranger in town,
looking for work, and that she'd just had a telegram from home saying
her mother was dying. She pumped up the tears in good style, and put it
up to him to ante the car fare if he didn't want her heart to break. It
didn't break."
Jean absently fashioned the moist earth beneath her fingers into the
semblance of a priest's face, which she instantly obliterated when it
stirred Amy's interest.
"Why couldn't they trace her?" she asked.
"Because she was too cute to stick to her train. She must have jumped
the express when they slowed up for their first stop."
The fugitive bulked large in Jean's meditations. It occurred to her
that possibly the needless rigor of her own treatment in Cottage No.
6 might originate in her chance resemblance to Sophie Powell. She
wondered how it fared with the girl; whether she had had to make her
way unbefriended; to what she had turned her hand. Was she perhaps
living a blameless life, respected, loved, in all ways another
personality, yet forever hag-ridden with the fear of recapture? She
did not debate whether such freedom were worth its cost, for just
then the pungent invitation of the woods was borne to her across the
lettuce-rows.
A bit of refuse crystallized her resolve. She spied it toward the
end of her day's toil--a large rusty nail half protruding from the
loam--and knew it instantly for the tool which should compass her
release. Her mind acted on its hint with extraordinary lucidity, and
her fingers were scarcely less nimble. Not even Amy at her side saw her
slip the treasure trove into the concealing masses of her hair. From
that moment till the bolts were shot upon her for the night she was
absorbed in her plans.
To duplicate Sophie Powell's exploit was, of course, out of the
question. Her own door was never left unlocked; the Holy Terror's
graceless clothes, for all practical uses, might as well hang in
another planet; while even were these impossibilities surmounted, she
could scarcely hope to hoodwink the men at the gate. She must secure
a disguise somehow, but she cheerfully left that detail to chance. To
escape was the main thing, and if by a rusty nail she might cross that
bridge, surely she need borrow no trouble lest her wits desert her
afterward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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