But in the afternoon of that same day a strange thing happened. My mother was compelled to go to the East End of London, and at the last moment insisted upon my going with her. She was on the committee in connection with the proposed erection of some improved dwelling houses somewhere in Whitechapel, and the meeting was to be held in a school room in the Commercial Road. I was looking pale, she said, and the drive there would do me good, so I went with her, lacking energy to refuse, and sat in the carriage whilst she went in to the meeting—a proceeding which I very soon began to regret.
The surroundings and environment of the place were in every way depressing. The carriage had been drawn up at the corner of two great thoroughfares—avenues through which flows the dark tide of all that is worst and most wretched of London poverty. For a few minutes I watched the people. It was horrible, yet in a sense fascinating. But when the first novelty had worn off the whole thing suddenly sickened me. I removed my eyes from the pavement with a shudder. I would watch the people no longer. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me to look again upon that stream of brutal and unsexed men and women. I kept my eyes steadfastly fixed upon the rug at my feet. And then a strange thing happened to me. Against my will a moment came when I was forced to raise my eyes. A man hurrying past the carriage had half halted upon the pavement only a foot or two away from me. As I looked up our eyes met. He was dressed in a suit of rusty black, and he had a handkerchief tied closely around his neck in lieu of collar. He was wearing a flannel shirt and no tie. His whole appearance, so far as dress was concerned, was miserably in accord with the shabbiness of his surroundings. Yet from underneath his battered hat a pair of piercing eyes met mine, and a delicate mouth quivered for a moment with a curious and familiar emotion. I sprang from my seat and struggled frantically with the fastening of the carriage door. Disguise was all in vain, so far as I was concerned. It was my father who stood there looking at me. I pushed the carriage door open at last and sprang out upon the pavement. I was a minute too late—already he was a vanishing figure. At the corner of a squalid little court he turned round and held out one hand threateningly towards me. I paused involuntarily. The gesture was one which it was hard to disobey. Yet I think that I most surely should have disobeyed it, but for the fact that during my momentary hesitation he had disappeared. I hurried forward a few steps. There was no sign of him anywhere. He had passed down some steps and vanished in a wilderness of small courts; to pursue him was hopeless. Already a little crowd of people were gazing at me boldly and curiously. I turned round and stepped back into the carriage.
I waited in an agony of impatience until my mother came out. Then I told her with trembling voice what had happened.
Her face grew paler as she listened, but I could see that she was inclined to doubt my story.
“It could not have been your father,” she exclaimed, her voice shaking with agitation. “You must have been mistaken.”
I shook my head sadly. There was no possibility of any mistake so far as I was concerned.
“It was my father. That girl has broken her word,” I cried bitterly. “She has seen him and—she knows. He is hiding from her!”
We drove straight to the telegraph office. My mother wrote out a message to Mr. Deville. I, too, sent one to Olive. Then we drove back to our rooms. There was nothing to be done but wait.
It was six o’clock before the first answer came back. It was from Mr. Bruce Deville. I tore it open and read it.
“You must be mistaken. Can answer for it she has taken no steps. She is still here. Mr. Ffolliot has not returned. Impossible for them to have met.”