o meet friends for the first time after her secret and unhappy
adventure. She feared that Janet, by some magic insight of affection,
would read at once in her face the whole history of the past year.

Janet had written to her, giving and asking for news, and urging a
visit, on the very day after the scene in which George Cannon admitted
his turpitude. Had the letter been sent a day or two sooner, reaching
Hilda on her honeymoon, she would certainly have replied to it with the
tremendous news of her marriage, and, her marriage, having been made
public in the Five Towns, her shame also would necessarily be public.
But chance had saved her from this humiliation. Nobody in the district
was aware of the marriage. By a characteristic instinct, she had been
determined not to announce it in any way until the honeymoon was over.
In answer to Janet, she had written very briefly, as was usual with her,
and said that she would come to Lane End House as soon as she could.
"Shall I tell her, or shan't I?" she had cogitated, and the decision had
been for postponement. But she strongly desired, nevertheless, to pay
the visit. She had had more than enough of Preston Street and of
Brighton, and longed to leave at any price.

And, at length, one dull morning, after George Cannon had sailed for
America, and all affairs were somehow arranged or had arranged
themselves, and Sarah Gailey was better and the autumn season smoothly
running with new servants, she had suddenly said to Sarah: "I have to go
to Bursley to-day, for a few days." And she had gone, upon the impulse,
without having previously warned Janet. Changing at Knype, she had got
into the wrong train, and had found herself at Shawport, at the far,
lower end of Bursley, instead of up at Bleakridge, close by the
Orgreaves! And there was, of course, no cab for her. But a cabman who
had brought a fare to the station, and was driving his young woman back,
had offered in a friendly way to take Hilda too. And she had sat in the
cab with the young woman, who was a paintress at Peel's great
manufactory at Shawport, and suffered from a weak chest; and they had
talked about the potters' strike which was then upheaving the district,
and the cab had overtaken a procession of thinly clad potters, wending
in the bitter mist to a mass meeting at Hanbridge; and Hilda had been
thereby much impressed and angered against all employers. And the young
woman had left the cab, half-way up Trafalgar Road,