She had left her pocketbook, with its pitifully few nickels for car-fare
and lunch, in the cloak-room with her coat and hat. But she did not stop
to think of that. She was fleeing again, this time on foot, from a man.
She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated
work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above
the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy
pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few busy flakes floating about
her.
The day seemed pitiless as the world. Where could she go and what should
she do? There seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Instinctively
she felt her grandmother would feel that a calamity had befallen them in
losing the patronage of the manager of the ten-cent store. Perhaps Lizzie
would get into trouble. What should she do?
She had reached the corner where she and Lizzie usually took the car for
home. The car was coming now; but she had no hat nor coat, and no money to
pay for a ride. She must walk. She paused not, but fled on in a steady
run, for which her years on the mountain had given her breath. Three miles
it was to Flora Street, and she scarcely slackened her pace after she had
settled into that steady half-run, half-walk. Only at the corner of Flora
Street she paused, and allowed herself to glance back once. No, the
manager had not pursued her. She was safe. She might go in and tell her
grandmother without fearing he would come behind her as soon as her back
was turned.