"Baldwin is in the sitting-room," he said. "I see you are quite ready. Are you feeling strong?"
"I am perfectly well," she replied.
They went downstairs, and into the room which the party had occupied on the preceding evening. Preparations for breakfast were in active progress, and two waiters were conducting them with as much fuss and display of alacrity as possible.
Hayes Meredith greeted Margaret with a cheerful aspect. Mr. Baldwin merely set a chair for her. Their "good-morrow" was but a look, and what a pang this caused Margaret! The servants were not to know they had not met till then.
To the practical, business-like mind of Hayes Meredith the painful matter on hand had not, indeed, ceased to be painful, but had advanced so far towards a happy termination, which should end its embarrassment positively, and in all human probability its danger, that he felt able to be cheerful without much effort or affectation, and took upon himself the task of keeping up appearances, to which his companions were much less equal. He really ate his breakfast, while the other three made the poorest pretence of doing so, and he did the talking about an early shopping expedition which had been proposed over night.
At length this portion of the trial came to an end in its turn, and Margaret, accompanied by James, and followed by Meredith and Baldwin, left the hotel on foot. The two waiters witnessed the departure of the party.
"A precious glum lot for a party wot is wisitin' the metrop'lis, eh, William? said one to the other.
"Ain't they just, Jim! They are swells though, from wot I hear."
When they reached Piccadilly Meredith procured a hackney-coach, and the silent little company were driven to the City. Margaret sat back, leaning her head in the corner with closed eyes. The three men hardly spoke. The way seemed very long, and yet when the coach stopped, in obedience to Meredith's directions to the driver, in a crooked, narrow, dirty little street, which she had a confused notion was near the great river, Margaret started, and her heart, which had lain like a lump of lead in her breast, began to beat violently.
A few minutes' walking, but by a tortuous way, brought them to a shabby little old church, damp, mouldy, and of disused aspect, and into the presence of a clergyman whose appearance matched admirably with that of the building, for he, too, was shabby, little, and old, and looked as if he were mouldered by time and seclusion. An ancient clerk, who apparently combined the clerkly office with those of the pew-opener and the verger, was the only other person present. Not even a stray boy, not even a servant-girl out on an errand, or a nursemaid airing her charges in the damp, had been tempted, by the rare spectacle of an open church-door, to enter the building.