"Don't stay in the chill air," he said; "you are shivering now."
Then he went away with a light cheerful step.
Harriet Routh stood quite still, as he had left her, for one full minute; then she hurried into the sitting-room, shut the door, dropped on her knees before a chair, and ground her face fiercely against her arms. There she knelt, not sobbing, not weeping, but shuddering--shuddering with the quick terrible iteration of mortal agony of spirit, acting on an exhausted frame. After a while she rose, and then her face was dreadful to look upon, in its white fixed despair.
"If I have saved him," she said, as she sat wearily down by the table again, and once more leaned her face upon her hands--"if I have saved him! It may be there is a chance; at all events, there is a chance. How wonderful, how inconceivably wonderful that he should not have heard of it! The very stones of the street seem to cry it out, and he has not heard of it; the very air is full of it, and he knows nothing. If anything should prevent his going? But no; nothing will, nothing can. This was the awful danger--this was the certain, the inevitable risk; if I have averted it; if I have saved him, for the time!"
The chill of coming dawn struck cold to her limbs, the sickness of long watching, of fear, and of sleeplessness was at her heart, but Harriet Routh did not lie down on her bed all that dreadful night. Terrible fatigue weighed down her eyelids, and made her flesh tremble and quiver over the aching bones.
"I must not sleep--I should not wake in time," she said, as she forced herself to rise from her chair, and paced the narrow room, when the sudden dumbness of sleep threatened to fall upon her. "I have something to do."
Dawn came, then sunrise, then the sounds, the stir of morning. Then Harriet bathed her face in cold water, and looked in her toilet-glass at her haggard features. The image was not reassuring; but she only smiled a bitter smile, and made a mocking gesture with her hand.
"Never any more," she murmured--"never any more." The morning was cold and raw, but Harriet heeded it not. She glanced out of the window of her bed-room before she left it, wearing her bonnet and shawl, and closely veiled. Then she closed the shutters, locked the door, withdrew the key, and came into the sitting-room. She went to a chair and took up a coat which lay at the back of it; then she looked round for a moment as if in search of something. Her eye lighted on a small but heavy square of black marble which lay on the writing-table, and served as a paper-press. She then spread the coat on the table, placed the square of marble on it, and rolled it tightly round the heavy centre, folding and pressing the parcel into the smallest possible dimensions. This done, she tied it tightly with a strong cord, and, concealing it under her shawl, went swiftly out of the house. No one saw her issue from the grim, gloomy door--the neighbouring housemaids had not commenced their matutinal task of door-step cleaning, alleviated by gossip--and she went away down the street, completely unobserved. Went away, with her head down, her face hidden, with a quick, steady step and an unfaltering purpose. There were not many wayfarers abroad in the street, and of those she saw none, and was remarked by only one.
Harriet Routh took her way towards the river, and reached Westminster-bridge as the clock in the great tower of the new palace marked half-past six. All was quiet. A few of the laggards of the working classes were straggling across the bridge to their daily toil, a few barges were moving sluggishly upon the muddy water; but there was no stir, no business yet. Harriet lingered when she reached the centre of the bridge; a figure was just vanishing at the southern end, the northern was clear of people. She leaned over the parapet, and looked down--no boat, no barge was near. Then she dropped the parcel she had carried into the river, and the water closed over it. Without the delay of an instant, she turned and retraced her steps toward home. As she neared South Morton-street, she found several of the shops open, and entering one, she purchased a black marble letter-press. It was not precisely similar to that with which she had weighted the parcel, which now lay in the bed of the river; but the difference was trifling, and not to be perceived by the eye of a stranger.
Near the house in which the Rouths occupied apartments there was an archway which formed the entrance to some mews. As she passed this open space, Harriet's glance fell upon the inquisitive countenance of a keen-looking, ragged street-boy, who was lying contentedly on his back under the archway, with his arms under his head, and propped upon the kerbstone. A sudden impulse arrested her steps. "Have you no other place to lie than here?" she asked the boy, who jumped up with great alacrity, and stood before her in an attitude almost respectful.