As Daisy Banks ran from the house, wild almost with horror and affright,
she made straight for the works, feeling that she might yet be in time
to warn Richard Glaire of his peril, if she could not stay her father
from the terrible deed he was about to commit.
On encountering Big Harry in the great town, that worthy had, on
recovering from his surprise at the meeting, told her all--of the plot
formed, and that her father, maddened against Richard Glaire for getting
her away, was the man who had joined the Brotherhood, and had undertaken
to lay the powder for the destruction of the works.
Yielding to her prayers, the great, honest fellow had agreed to
accompany her back; and not a moment had been lost, but on reaching her
home her mother was absent, and Joe Banks had been away all day.
Then came the visit to the House, and her leaving for the works.
"Wheer next, lass?" said Harry, coming out of the shadow where he had
been waiting, but Daisy brushed by him and was gone.
"See theer now," he muttered. "What, owd Tommy, is that thou?" he
cried, as his old friend and fellow-workman, who had in the darkness
missed Daisy, ran up.
"Did'st see Daisy Banks?" he cried.
"Yes, I see her. She's gone down street like a flash o' lightning."
"No, no; she must have gone to the works," cried Tom.
"Then she's gone all round town to get to 'em," said Harry.
"Come and see first," cried Tom, and the two men ran towards the gates.
"What time weer it to be, lad?" whispered Harry.
"I don't know," said Tom hoarsely; "they've kept that to their sens."
"But owd Joe Banks is going to do it, isn't he?"
"Yes, yes; but come along quick."
They reached the gate, but there was no sign of Daisy Banks; all was
closed, and to all appearance the place had not been opened for days.
"Theer, I telled ye so," growled Harry; "she didn't come this waya at
all. She's gone home."
"How long would it take us to go?" whispered Tom, who now began to think
it possible that Daisy had gone in search of her father.
"Get down theer i' less than ten minutes, lad, back waya," replied
Harry; "come along."
Tom tried the gates once more, and then looked down the side alley, but
all was still.
"If she has been here, she can't have stayed," he said to himself.
"Here, quick, Harry, come on, and we may find Joe Banks, too."
"And if we do, what then?" growled the hammerman.
"We must stop him--hold him--tie his hands--owt to stay him fro' doing
this job."
"I'm wi' ye, lad," said Harry, "he'll say thanky efterward. If I get a
good grip o' him he wean't want no bands."
The two men started off at a race, and as they disappeared Daisy crept
out of the opposite door-way, where she had been crouching down, and
then tried the gates.
All fast, and she dare not ring the big bell, but stood listening for a
moment or two, and then ran swiftly along the wall, and down the side
alley to the door that admitted to the counting-house--the alley where
her interview with Richard Glaire had been interrupted by the coming of
Tom Podmore.
She reached the door and tried the handle, giving it a push, when, to
her great joy, she found it yield, and strung up to the pitch of doing
anything by her intense excitement, she stepped into the dark entry, the
door swinging to behind her, and she heard it catch.
Then for a few minutes she stood still, holding her hand to her heart,
which was beating furiously. At last, feeling that she must act, she
felt her way along the wall to the counting-house door, looking in to
find all still and dark, and then she cried in a low voice, "Father--Mr
Richard--are you here?"
No response, and she went to the door leading into the yard, to find it
wide open and all without in the great place perfectly still and dark,
while the great heaps of old metal and curiously-shaped moulds and
patterns could just be made out in the gloom.
A strange feeling of fear oppressed her, but she fought it back bravely,
and went on, avoiding the rough masses in the path, and going straight
to the chief door of the great works.
The place was perfectly familiar to her, for she had as a child often
brought her father's dinner, and been taken to see the engines,
furnaces, and large lathes, with the other weird-looking pieces of
machinery, which in those days had to her young eyes a menacing aspect,
and seemed as if ready to seize and destroy the little body that crept
so cautiously along.
Entering the place then bravely, she went on through the darkness, with
outstretched hands, calling softly again and again the name of Richard
Glaire or her father. Several times, in spite of her precautions, she
struck herself violently against pieces of metal that lay about, or came
in contact with machinery or brickwork; but she forgot the pain in the
eagerness of her pursuit till she had convinced herself that no one
could be on the basement floor.
Then seeking the steps, she proceeded to the floor above, calling in a
low whisper from time to time as she went on between the benches, and
past the little window that looked down on the alley, which had afforded
Sim Slee a means of entry when the bands were destroyed.
No one on this floor; and with a shiver, begotten of cold and dread, she
proceeded to the steps leading to the next floor, which she searched in
turn, ending by going to the third--a repetition of those below.
"There is no one here," she said to herself at last; "unless he is
asleep."
She shuddered at this; and now, with the chilly feeling growing stronger
each moment, she made her way amongst the benches and wood-work of this
place, which was the pattern shop, and reached the top of the stairs,
where she paused; and then, not satisfied, feeling that this was the
most likely place for a man to be in hiding, she went over this upper
floor again.
As she searched, the clock at the church struck eleven, and its tones
sent a thrill through her, they sounded so solemn; but directly after,
with the tears falling fast, as the old clock bell brought up happy
recollections of the past, she began to descend; but was not half-way
down before she heard footsteps, and her name pronounced in an eager
whisper--
"Daisy--Daisy!"
She stopped short, trembling with dread. It was Richard Glaire, the man
who had had such influence over her, and whom she had told herself that
she loved so well. But this feeling of fear that she suffered now could
not be love; she knew that well: and during her late seclusion she had
learned to look upon the young man's actions in a new light. His
mother's words to her had taken root, and she knew now that his
intentions towards her had only been to make her the plaything of the
hour of his fleeting liking; and the girl's face flushed, and her teeth
were set, as once again she asked herself why had she been so weak and
vain as to believe this man.
"Daisy--Daisy--Daisy Banks, are you here?" came in a loud whisper; and
still she did not move, but her heart fluttered, and her breath was
drawn painfully.
No: she did not care for him now, she felt. It was a dream--a silly
love dream, and she had awakened a wiser, stronger girl than she was
before.
"Stronger!" she thought; "and yet I stand here afraid to speak, afraid
to move, when I have come to save him perhaps from a horrible death. I
will speak:"
She stopped again, for a terrible thought oppressed her. She must not
betray her father. He might even now be coming to the place, if it was
true that he was to blow up the works--he might even now be here, and
the explosion--Oh, it was too horrible; she dared not speak even now:
she dared not stay. She was not so brave as she thought, and she must
fly from the place, or try to meet her father. Not Richard Glaire; she
could not--dare not meet him again; for she feared him still, even
though she told herself that she was strong. A strange feeling of
faintness came over her, all seemed to swim round--and had she not
clutched at the handrail, her feelings would have been too much for her,
and she would have fallen headlong to the foot of the steep flight.
As it was, she uttered a faint cry, and it betrayed her presence.
"I knew you were here," cried Richard Glaire, hurriedly ascending the
stairs; "why, Daisy, my little bird, at last--at last. Where have you
been?"
"Then you are safe yet," she gasped, as he caught her in his arms,
though she repulsed him.
"Safe; yes, my little beauty. I found you had been at the house, and
they said you were here--come to look for me. Why, Daisy, this meeting
makes up for all my misery since you have been gone."