“I am sure of it, my poor dear girl. He wishes nothing more.”
“Please turn this way. They must not see me speak to any one.”
“One word more. How long is the circus to be here?”
“We never know; it depends on the receipts--may go to-morrow. Oh, there--”
She hurried on without another word, and Dolores slowly returned to Miss Vincent’s lodgings. Her lecture was to be given at three o’clock, but she knew that she should have to be shown the school and class-rooms in the forenoon. Gerald, as she calculated the trains, might arrive either by half-past twelve or a quarter past four.
Nervously she endured her survey of the school, replying to the comments as if in a dream, and hurrying it over, so as must have vexed those who expected her to be interested. She dashed off to the station, and reached it just in time to see the train come in. Was it--yes, it was Gerald who sprang out and came towards her.
“Dolores! My gallant Dolores! You have found her!”
“Yes, but in cruel slavery--apprenticed.”
“That can be upset. Her mother--is she here?”
“Yes, and O’Leary. They sold her, apprenticed her, and these people use her brutally. She told me this morning. No, I don’t think you can get at her now.”
“I will see her mother at any rate. I may be able to buy her off. Where shall I find you?”
Dolores told him, but advised him to meet her at Miss Hackett’s, whom she thought more able to help, and more willing than Miss Vincent, in case he was able to bring Ludmilla away with him.
“But it will make no difference in the long run.”
“Dearest, do I not trust your brave words? From Trieste I hear that the endeavour of Benista to recover his wife is proved. There’s one step of the chain. Is it dragging us down, or setting us free?”
“Free--free from the perplexities of property,” cried Dolores. “Free to carve out a life.”
“Certainly I have wished I was a younger son. Only if it could have come in some other way!”
Dolores had to go to luncheon at Miss Vincent’s, and then to deliver her lecture. It was well that she had given it so often as almost to know it by heart, for the volcano of anxiety was surging high within her.
As she went out she saw Gerald waiting for her, and his whole mien spoke of failure.
“Failed! Yes,” he said. “The poor child is regularly bound to that Jellicoe, the master of the concern, for twenty-five pounds, the fine that my uncle brought on the mother, as O’Leary said with a grin, and she is still under sixteen.”