Within the hour, Molly and little Sal were turning out of the long path from the big house; the girl unusually subdued by the unexpected and unhappy event, and her mammy wondering whether she had made the right decision; after all, Emma Tanner was not due back for some many weeks. On top of which, Molly dreaded losing the regular wage she had brought into the wretched little house on Dock Street. All the way down Park Street Molly agonized over her decision. Nelly had been such a help to her. She seemed such an honest and straightforward person, and wasn’t it unlikely that such a person would love another woman like her sister if that woman were deceitful? Could it be possible that Emma Tanner was not doing Justice Crowther’s dirty work after all, and therefore Molly’s suspicions were totally unfounded?

For a moment, Molly’s resolve began to falter. There was little Sal to be considered and the child’s bewilderment was written clearly on her face. Had she done the right thing? Molly asked herself now. Had she acted too hastily? Couldn’t she safely have stayed on, at least until just before the Tanners returned? Nelly’s unhappy face came into her mind and now Molly stopped, her thoughts churning round in her mind. Surely a few more weeks wouldn’t matter, she argued with herself, and she did need the money, there was no denying that.

Molly’s mind was made up. Gripping the child’s hand tightly in her own, she began walking back towards the big house, slowly at first, then more hurriedly. ‘Where are we going, Mammy?’ Sal asked, her little legs running to keep up with Molly’s long strides. ‘Are we going back to Nelly’s house, are we, eh?’ She was obviously delighted by the prospect.

‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?’ Molly teased, a warm smile lighting up her lovely features as she looked down at the girl’s eager face.

When Molly raised her eyes towards the grand iron gates of the Tanner residence, the smile slid from her face, and in its place there came a look of fear and horror. There, climbing from a carriage which had stopped at the roadside right outside the big house was the unmistakable figure of Justice Caleb Crowther. Molly’s heart missed a beat and she stopped in her tracks. All manner of emotions tore through her: shock, disbelief, fear and repugnance. So! She had been right about Emma Tanner all along! And what of Nelly? For it seemed as though she also had been deceitful, and was no better than the rest.

As he strode towards the gates, Caleb Crowther seemed to cast a glance in Molly’s direction. Terrified, she pulled little Sal behind an overhanging laurel bush, warning her to ‘stay very still and don’t make a sound!’ Sensing the fear in her mammy’s voice, the girl did as she was told.

Not daring to show themselves, for fear that Justice Crowther might suddenly spring on them, the two stayed hidden, pressed deep into the shrubbery and hardly daring to breathe. From high up on his seat, the carriage driver could be easily seen. Molly’s fear of discovery was heightened when suddenly he stretched his neck as though searching the very spot where they were secreted. Terribly afraid, Molly clutched the girl to her and pulled her down into an uncomfortable crouching position. Through an open patch in the laurel bush, she saw the driver relax in his seat, draw out his pipe, which he proceeded to fill with strings of tobacco from his pouch, and afterwards lean lazily into the seat, head back, eyes heavenwards as he took great sensuous pleasure in the puffing of his pipe.