About a fortnight after Fanny arrived in San Francisco she rose from her slumbers, broken by unquiet visions, with pale and gloomy looks, for she had not yet decided upon the course she would adopt in her present extremity, and her sombre countenance and spiritless manners attracted the notice of her landlady.
‘Mr. Edwards has gone to Sacramento, I hear,’ said she, as she placed the breakfast equipage upon the table.
‘Yes.’ replied Fanny, coldly.
‘He did not say anything to me about the rent,’ observed the woman, in a doubtful and hesitating tone. ‘He engaged the apartments, you know; but if you pay the rent when it is due, of course it is all the same.’
‘You have always received your rent from me, Mrs. Smith,’ returned Fanny, somewhat haughtily, ‘and as long as I occupy your apartments I shall continue to pay for them. I hope you do not doubt my ability to do so?’
‘Oh, no,’ said her landlady. ‘Only as Mr. Edwards engaged the apartments, and has now left without saying anything about the matter, I did not know how matters might be; but I meant no offence, I am sure.’
Mrs. Smith whisked herself out of the room, and Fanny was again alone to contemplate the dread realities of her position. Still undecided, still reluctant to adopt either of the alternatives which she had canvassed over, but keenly alive to the necessity of a speedy decision, she yet sought to avert the crisis, if only for a few days; and having made a bundle of a silk dress and a handsome shawl which Edwards had given her, she left the house to obtain the means of liquidating the week’s rent, that would be due on the ensuing day.
‘Mrs. Edwards,’ said a female voice behind her, as she stood before the window of a pawnbroker’s shop, unable to summon courage to enter; and turning round she beheld a young girl, stylishly dressed and possessed of considerable pretensions to beauty, whom she instantly recognized as a fellow-lodger with whom she had once or twice exchanged civilities when they had met upon the stairs or in the passage.
‘I have renounced that name forever, Miss Jessop,’ said she ‘and would forget all the associations belonging to it.’
‘Ah, I heard that Mr. Edwards had gone to Sacramento,’ observed Miss Jessop.