Jean threw a glance over her shoulder. The gardener was still beyond earshot.

"Go on," she said eagerly. "How did she manage outside? That's the part I want to hear."

"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 

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