But Miss Gregson did not move. She sat lost in deep thought, and her face was grave. Then she rose and went upstairs to her room.
[CHAPTER XVII]
FLIGHT
MEG lay on her bed staring out into the darkness.
She had seen no one since her conversation with Sheila, having asked for her meals to be brought up into her room on the plea of a headache. Later, Miss Gregson had knocked at her door and had turned the handle to find it locked. Meg hoped she would think that she was asleep. She had carefully locked also the door between her room and Sheila's. All she wanted was to be left alone to think.
And now, after some hours of lonely thought, she lay staring up into the dark sky spangled with stars. The darkness frightened her. It brought back to her mind some of her former experiences before she had come to Friars Court. She remembered the drunken man who had put a stop to her singing one day. She recalled the coarse jokes and rowdy laughter that she had heard in the public houses. She shivered as in memory she once more tramped through the lonely lanes or hunted for a safe place in which to pass the night. She had hoped all that dreadful life was passed for ever; but now it loomed before her again as a possibility and she was more lonely now than she had ever been in her life, for she no longer had Jem's love and protection in the background of her mind.
Although Sheila had given her a month in which to arrange her plans, Meg had no intention whatever of staying a day longer at Friars Court. She was only waiting for the sun to rise to start out alone once more in the world. She had already packed her few things in a bag, taking only what was positively necessary.
She had five pounds in her purse, and with that and the few necessary clothes, she meant to leave for ever the house in which she had been sheltered so comfortably for two years. She had made no plans, and could think of none. Her only hope was in her voice. But how to set about making a living by her voice she did not know.
Of one thing she was resolved. She would rather die than go again on the tramp. She must get a cheap room somewhere, and after the five pounds had been spent, unless she was fortunate enough to have found pupils, she must starve. But as she lay staring out into the darkness she shivered—and was afraid.
If only she had not behaved so badly to Jem she would have felt that there was at least someone in the world who cared whether she was dead or alive. But how could she expect him to love her any longer now that by her action at the concert she had refused to have anything to do with him. At the thought Meg turned her face to her pillow and cried. If only she had Jem's love in the background she would have felt less lonely.