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Page 67
"Oh, yes," she cried, "that's it--that's my name."
But as for the last name and the address she was just as hazy as
ever. Still, there was now something different about her.
"Florence--Florence what?" reiterated Constance patiently.
There was no answer. But with the continued repetition it seemed as
if some depth in her nature had been stirred. Constance could not
help feeling that the girl had really found herself.
She had risen and was facing Constance, both hands pressed to her
throbbing temples as if to keep her head from bursting. Constance
had assisted her off with her coat and hat, and now the sartorial
wreck of her masses of blonde hair was apparent.
"I suppose," she cried incoherently, "I'm just one more of the
thousands of girls who drop out of sight every year."
Constance listened in amazement. As the spell of her influence
seemed to calm the overwrought mind of the girl there succeeded a
hardness in her tone that was wholly out of keeping with her youth.
There was something that breathed of a past where there should have
been nothing but the thought of a future.
"Tell me why," soothed Constance with an air that invited
confidence.
The girl looked up and again passed her hand over her white forehead
with its mass of tangled fallen hair. Somehow Constance felt a
tingling sensation of sympathy in her heart. Impulsively she put out
her hand and took the cold moist hand of the girl.
"Because," she hesitated, struggling now with re-flooding
consciousness, "because--I don't know. I thought, perhaps--" she
added, dropping her eyes, "you could--help me."
She was speaking rapidly enough now, "I think they have employed
detectives to trace me. One of them is almost up with me. I'm afraid
I can't slip out of the net again. And--I--I won't go back to them.
I can't. I won't."
"Go back to whom?" queried her friend. "Detectives employed by
whom?"
"My folks," she answered quickly.
Constance was surprised. Least of all had she expected that.
"Why won't you go home?" she prompted as the girl seemed about to
lapse into a sort of stolid reticence.
"Home?" she repeated bitterly. "Home? No one would believe my story.
I couldn't go home, now. They have made it impossible for me to go
home. I mean, every newspaper has published my picture. There were
headlines for days, and only by chance I was not recognized."
She was sobbing now convulsively. "If they had only let me alone! I
might have gone back, then. But now--after the newspapers and the
search--never! And yet I am going to have revenge some day. When he
least expects it I am going to tell the truth and--"
She stopped.
"And what?" asked Constance.
"Tell the truth--and then do a cowardly thing. I would--"
"You would not!" blazed Constance.
There was no mistaking the meaning.
"Leave it to me. Trust me. I will help you."
She pulled the girl down on the divan beside her.
"Why talk of suicide?" mused Constance. "You can plead this aphasia
I have just seen. I know lots of newspaper women. We could carry it
through so that even the doctors would help us. Remember, aphasia
will do for a girl nowadays what nothing else can do."
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