"Do not go out such weather as this; see how fast the snow falls."
"It won't hurt me. I must go out."
She dared not further interpose; and in a few minutes he was gone.
Left alone, she meditated on the singular change in his manner—on his fierceness when he had observed her watching him—his paleness—his agitation—and his throwing those pieces of paper into the fire.
She opened his writing-case. There, among some loose pieces of blank paper, she found one with some writing on it. A film overspread her eyes, as she recognised in it a copy of Captain Heath's writing—so like it, that had not the characters been traced on a stray slip of paper, she could never have suspected it to be other than his writing.
Rushing upon her like an overwhelming tide, came the swift and terrible thoughts which revealed that her husband had committed a forgery. In the desperate hope that she might not yet be too late to save him from the last act—that she might yet meet him at the banker's and save him—she threw a shawl around her, put on her bonnet, and in an instant she was in a cab driving furiously to Charing Cross; in her anxiety too much excited to feel the horror of her situation.
As the cab dashed round the corner, by Charles the First's statue, she saw Cecil hurry from Messrs. Drummonds' banking-house. She saw no more: her brain swam round. When the driver opened the cab door, he found her in a swoon.
It did not last long: she recovered herself; and wildly looking round her, remembered in an instant all that had passed.
"To South Audley Street!" she impatiently exclaimed.
To Captain Heath's she drove, and astonished the servant very much by hurrying up stairs, and rushing into the room as if life and death depended on her speed.