Annie knelt for a second, as if dazed, watching her. Then she cried out: "No, Kate! No! Don't bum it.... Look at the paper.... Look what it says."
"For goodness' sake, child, be quiet 1 What are you yelling like that for? Do you want her to come down ?"
For answer, Annie pulled the paper from Kate's hands and spread it out on the hearth again, and pointed to it. "Look!"
Kate knelt back and read for a few seconds. Then her body jerked forward, and, with hands grasping each side of the paper, her eyes moved swiftly down the column.
She sat back slowly and turned to Annie. They stared stupidly at each other. Annie suddenly shivered, the inward shiver of delight. Kate took her hand, and they both rose to their feet.
"What are we going to do, Kate?" whispered Annie.
ai5
Kate just stared at her, with that dazed look still in her eyes. Then it seemed to lift like a curtain, taking with it the drawn, dead look that Annie had seen there for so long.
"We're going home," she said.
"When?"
"Now. Now."
Now? "
"This minute!" cried Kate.
"Oh, Kate!" They clung together for a second, their arms gripping each other tightly.
"Come on. We'll get packed."
They hurried upstairs, yet went softly, through habit; and in ten minutes they returned again, dressed for the street and Kate carrying two cases.
In the kitchen Kate said, "I'll take her a cup of tea, it will lighten the shock."
Annie, who still held the dirty newspaper in her hand, asked, "Kate, can I keep this?"
Kate touched her cheek tenderly: "Yes, darling; you can."
As Kate hurried out, Annie opened the paper and read the report again.
It was dated April 84th and read:
double tyne side tragedy
ON DAY FOLLOWING DOCTOR SUING FOR DIVORCE NAMING ASSISTANT AS
CO-RESPONDENT WIFE SHOT BY FORMER LOVER
Stella Dorothy Prince, wife of Doctor Rodney Prince of Conister House, South Shields, was today shot dead by her former lover, Herbert Barrington, who after wards shot himself. Only yesterday it was made public that divorce proceedings were pending between Doctor Prince and his wife, and naming Doctor John Swin- burn. Doctor Prince's assistant, as co-respondent. Bar ring ton called at the home of Mrs.
Prince, and, after heated argument, overheard by a servant, shot her.
The servant, Mary Dixon, stated. A blur of tears hid the print. It seemed awful that the ai6 doctor's wife was dead; although she wasn't nice she had been beautiful. But, anyway, they could go back home.
Oh, they could go back home now!
Kate came hurrying into the kitchen. She took some money from her bag and laid it on the table. She had hardly done this when the kitchen door burst open and Miss Patterson-Carey entered, her hair under a high night-cap and an old dressing-gown draped around her angular body.
"You can't go like this!" she cried.
"You just can't do it!"
"But I can," said Kate quietly.
"There is the money in lieu of notice that you say you require."
"You're a wicked woman to leave me like this."
"I have just read some news," said Kate, 'which has altered everything for me, but had you treated me even once as a human being I should not have left you so suddenly. Anyway, you are neither old nor sick, and, as you have often quoted to me, idle hands are armchairs for the Devil.
So it will be a change for him, in your case, to be made to stand this Christmas. "
Kate picked up the cases and motioned Annie to the door. There she turned and delivered her Parthian shot: "This, Miss Patterson Carey is what is known as ... retribution I' Annie opened the door and they went out into the dark morning.
The long journey from St. Leonards was nearly over. Kate and Annie, with the compartment to themselves, sat dose together in one corner.
The reaction from almost hysterical joy had set in, and Annie was sobbing, long, shivering sobs that shook every bone of her slight frame. Kate soothed her, saying, "There, there. Come, darling; stop it. You'll only make yourself ill. "
"I can't help it, Kate, I ... I keep thinking, if I hadn't seen that paper we might never have ..."
"Sh hi' said Kate.
"Just let's thank God you did see it. And there now; stop crying....
Listen! We'll soon be coming to the tunnel.
Remember the tunnel? "
In the dark of the tunnel they sat with their arms about each other, and Kate kissed Annie almost passionately
When they got out at Tyne Dock station, Kate stood tor a moment on the dimly lit platform and looked around her. She was home . home 1 For years she had longed to get away from the north and never see it again, but now she felt it held all that she wanted in life. She did not know where she would find Rodney; she might have to move on again in search of him; but she knew that she would return here eventually.
For this was her home; the people here were her people . good, bad and indifferent, they were her kindred.
At the dock gates they took the Jarrow tram. And Kate felt she would not exchange the hard slotted seat for one in Paradise. After they got out of the tram at the fifteen streets, they passed a group of people standing at the corner of Slade Street, and Annie asked softly, "Did you see who that was, Kate?" And Kate answered, "Yes, I saw. But she can do nothing more to us."
Kate's eyes were dry and bright, and her hand trembled as she knocked on the
