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Rh had left their marks. Clothes were shabbier, faces more brutal and habits plainly more vicious.

At one o'clock Mr. Ffrench disappeared from his room at the bank, no one knew exactly how or when. All the morning he had spent in vacillating between his desk and a window looking into the street. There was a rumor among the clerks that he had been seen vanishing through a side door leading into a deserted little back street.

An hour later he appeared in the parlor in which his daughter sat. He was hot and flurried and out of breath.

"Those scoundrels are in the town again," he said. "And there is no knowing what they are up to. It was an insane thing for Haworth to go away at such a time. By night there will be an uproar."

"If there is an uproar," said Miss Ffrench, "they will come here. They know they can do nothing at the Works. He is always ready for them there and they are angrier with you than they are with him."

"There is no reason why they should be," Ffrench protested. "I took no measures against them, heaven knows."

"I think," returned Rachel, "that is the reason. You have been afraid of them."

He colored to the roots of his hair.

"You are saying a deuced unpleasant thing, my dear," he broke forth.

"It is true," she answered. "What would be the use in not saying it?"

He had no reply to make. The trouble was that he never had a reply to make to these deadly simple statements of hers.

He began to walk up and down the room.