And so she sat down on benches, or wandered restlessly up and down the streets until it was dark and the long June day was done, when, dizzy and weary, she was once again treading the pavements of Fleet Street.
The bells of St. Clements had just pealed out ten hours, when the girl of a sudden perceived, hurriedly approaching her, her father.
He had evidently returned from home to find traces of her.
For a moment the shock paralysed her, but only for a moment. To her right was a narrow dark street; she darted in and ran down it with the haste that terror and madness give.
This street, or rather alley, is known as Devereux Passage.
On reaching the bottom of it, the poor hunted creature found herself in a sort of cul-de-sac. It was all over. There was no escape. The street ended. On the left were the closed iron gates of the Temple. In front of her was a wall. To the right her flight was also stopped, for there the narrow passage that leads off to Essex Street had wooden barriers placed across it, the pavement being up for repair of drain or water-pipes: so this too seemed to her hurried gaze, and in the dim light, impassable as the dead wall in front.
She was at bay; trembling, faint, and sick with despair, she looked wildly around for any chance of escape.
She heard the man's step coming down the passage—slowly too, with cruel deliberation; her father knew well that there was no way out, that she was a secured prisoner.
There was a doorway by her: she crouched into it, and with her breath bursting out in difficult sobs, and her heart beating as if to break, clung to the door-handle with all her strength. She determined that she would not be torn away. Then her head swam round—the heavy tread approached—she shut her eyes in her agony.
When he was just in front of her the sound of the man's step ceased.