"Good-night," said Ida. She paused with her hand on the door. "Cousin John, you came to me when I was in great trouble; you offered me a home when I was homeless; I think you have been as kind as you knew how to be, and I want to thank you. I daresay it is my fault that I have not got on better with you all. I am not so bad as you think—but we will say no more about that. I do not want you to consider me ungrateful; for indeed, I am grateful for the shelter you have given me, and I shall always remember that you came to my aid when I was in sore need. Will you please ask my cousin and Isabel to forgive me—for having unwittingly caused them so much trouble? Good-night."
"Good-night," said John Heron, grimly. "I should be comforted if I could think that you were speaking from your heart; but I fear that you are not—I fear that you are not! Oh, may that heart be melted! may you be brought to see the peril of your evil ways!" Followed by this devout prayer, Ida went up to her room. As she paced up and down she tried to tell herself that the whole thing was too ridiculous, was too much like a farce to make her wretched; but she felt unutterably miserable, and she knew that she could no longer endure Laburnum Villa and the petty tyranny and vindictiveness of these relations.
Poverty, hardship, she could have borne patiently and without complaining; but there are some things more intolerable to a high-spirited girl, such as Ida, than poverty or physical hardship—there are some things which hurt more than actual blows. She felt stifling, choking; she knew that, happen what might, she could not remain under her cousin's roof, eat the bread of his charity, for another day. She shuddered as she pictured herself meeting them at the breakfast-table, facing Mrs. Heron's spiteful face, Isabel's tear-swollen eyes, and her cousin John's sanctimonious sermon.
She would have to go.
She thrust a few things into a bag and took out her purse and counted the contents. They amounted to six pounds and a few shillings; but small though the sum was, she thought that it would maintain her until she could find some way of earning a livelihood, though at the moment she had not the least idea what she could find to do. Without undressing, she threw herself on the bed and tried to sleep; but her heart ached too acutely and her brain was too active to permit of sleep; and, try as she would, her mind would travel back to those brief days of happiness at Herondale, and she was haunted by the remembrance of Stafford and the love which she had lost; and at times that past was almost effaced by the vision of Stafford seated beside Maude Falconer at the concert.
As soon as she heard the servants moving about the house she rose, pale and weary, and putting on her outdoor things, stole down-stairs with her bag in her hand. The servants were busy in the kitchen, and she unfastened the hall door and left the house without attracting any attention. The fresh, morning air, while it roused her to a sense of her position, revived and encouraged her. After all, she was young and strong and—she looked up at the house of bondage which she was leaving—she was free! Oh, blessed freedom! How often she had read of it and heard it extolled; but she had never known until this moment how great, how sweet a thing it was.
She waited at the mean little station until a workmen's train came up, and, hustled by the crowd of sleepy and weary toilers, got into it. When she left the terminus, she walked with a portion of the throng which turned up Bishopsgate Street, though any other direction would have suited her as well—or as little; for she had no idea where to go, or what to do, beyond seeking some inexpensive lodging. She knew well enough that she could not afford to go to a hotel; that she would have to be content with a small room, perhaps an attic, and the plainest of food, while she sought for work. It was soon evident to her that she was not likely to find what she was looking for in the broad thoroughfare of shops and offices, and, beginning to feel bewildered by the crowd, which, early as it was, streamed along the pavements, she turned off into one of the narrower streets.
The long arm of Coincidence which thrusts itself into all our affairs, led her to the Minories, and to the very quay which Stafford had reached in his aimless wanderings; and, mechanically she paused and looked on dreamily at the bustle and confusion which reigned there. Perhaps the presence of the sheep and cattle attracted her: she felt drawn to them by sympathy with their hustled and hurried condition, which so nearly resembled her own.
With one hand resting on a rail, and a bag in the other, she watched the men as they drove the cattle up the gangways or lowered huge casks and bales into the hold. A big, fat man, with a slouch hat on the back of his head and a pipe in the corner of his mouth—which did not prevent him shouting and bawling at the men and the animals—lurched here and there like one of the casks, and in the midst of his shouting and bawling, he every now and then glanced at a watch of the frying-pan order.
It was evident even to the inexperienced Ida, that the vessel was about to start; the sailors were rushing about on deck in the haste and excitement of ordered disorder, chains were clanking, and ropes and pulleys were shrieking; and a steam whistle shrieked at intervals and added to the multitudinous noises.