As he stood staring in doubt at one of the coldly insolent facades, Jessica gazing in the same direction, Nancy saw that her moment had come.

She darted off, struggled through a moving crowd, and reached the opposite pavement.

All she had now to do was to press onward with the people around her; save by chance, she could not possibly be discovered.
Alarm at her daring troubled her for a few minutes.

As a matter of course Barmby would report this incident to her father,--unless she plainly asked him not to do so, for which she had no mind.

Yet what did it matter?
She had escaped to enjoy herself, and the sense of freedom soon overcame anxieties.