Lucy’s eyes turned very dim as soon as she had passed Mr Sterne, and things wore a strangely blurred aspect. She would have given worlds to have thrown herself upon his breast, and told all—of Agnes Hardon and her sorrow, confided to her alone, as the suffering woman begged of her to love her for her child’s sake, and not to turn upon her the cold bitter eyes of the world at large; and again and again Lucy had taken the passive, wasted, tearful face of Agnes to her breast, in the rare and stealthy meetings they had had, and wept over her, little knowing that Agnes possessed a secret which she felt that she could not divulge for the sake of those whom she had injured. Again and again Lucy had implored her leave to confide in Septimus Hardon, but Agnes had refused so firmly, telling her that the day her presence was betrayed would be that of their last meeting—telling her so angrily, but only to kneel at her feet the next moment, and ask her to bear for a little longer with an erring woman, whose stay in this world might not be for long. And so Lucy toiled on, bearing the scathing breath of calumny; pointed at by suspicion; and wounded again and again in her tenderest feelings by the only man she had ever felt that she could love. They were her own words, poor girl, though little had she seen of the world at large. She told herself that it was cruel of him to treat her as he did; but what could she do? And then she shivered as she thought of stolen meetings by night—meetings which should take place no more—while she wept bitterly as she hurried through the streets thinking of the misery of her lot.
She had no veil to her shabby bonnet, and it was only at last by a strong effort that she forced back the tears; for she felt that people were staring hard at her as she passed. But it was no unusual thing for people to look hard at Lucy Grey, while there was variety in those glances; there were, from women, the glance of envy, the look of sisterly admiration, and that bordering upon motherly love; and there were the hard stare from puppydom, the snobbish ogle, looks of love and respect, every glance that could dart from human eye; but the poor girl hurried on as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but bent upon the object of her journey. It was nothing to her that behind at a few yards’ distance came Mr William Jarker, favouring everyone with a fierce scowl in return for the glances bestowed upon her, as he tracked her with the pertinacity of a bloodhound, turning when she turned, crossing when she crossed. Once only on her way back did Lucy tremble, when a fiercely-bearded, middle-aged dandy half stopped in front of her, so that she was compelled to turn a little out of her path, as with a heightened colour her eyes sunk before the fellow’s insulting stare. But she did not hear his words, as, fervently wishing old Matt were by her side, she hurried on.
It sometimes happens, though, that those who are working for their own devices do us many a good turn; and it was so here, for as the studiously-dressed and bejewelled dandy turned and followed the fair girl, he suddenly became aware of a rough shoulder forcing him aside, when turning angrily, with umbrella raised to strike, he gazed full into the heavy, bull-dog countenance of Mr Jarker, whose white teeth gleamed beneath his flattened nose as though he were preparing to fasten on his victim.
The next moment the lemon-gloved hands were covering chain and pin, and the heavy swell of the London current subsided slowly and disappeared, leaving Lucy unmolested as she hurried on, followed still closely by her self-constituted bodyguard, of whoso presence she was ignorant; while, five minutes after, he made a side-bound into a doorway, where he stood peering round the post and smiling like some hideous satyr of old, as Lucy encountered Agnes Hardon, and stopped in the quiet street where they then were.
The sight must have been very gratifying to Mr Jarker, for he stood leering, and rubbing his soft, whitish hands, pausing every now and then to have a good gnaw at the nails, already nearly worn down to the quick; and then stepping lightly from his concealment, he passed close behind Agnes as she was whispering:
“God bless you! Don’t stay talking to me; go now. I’ll get it away directly he will let me. I have been five times already; but he was either there, or some one of his companions waiting about.”
Mr Jarker gave a short, husky, forced cough as he passed, when, turning hastily, fear and anger seemed to combine in Agnes Hardon’s face, as she caught Lucy’s hands in her own, interposing herself, as if for protection, till Mr Jarker had disappeared, when she hurried her away by another route, and hastily took her leave. But Lucy did not see her troubled, anxious face following at a short distance, and keeping her in sight till she reached the end of the court in time to encounter Mr Sterne, who saw almost at one glance Lucy, with Jarker standing aside to let her pass as he bestowed upon her a familiar smile and nod, and Agnes Hardon some fifty yards beyond, turning hastily and hurrying off; but her he followed angrily, and with a suffocating sensation at his breast, as if he were, knight-errant like, about to attack one of the evil genii who shadowed the life of her he loved. Fifty yards in advance, though, was Agnes, when he commenced following her steps, till a crowd around that common object of our streets, a fallen horse intercepted his view; and, when he had passed the throng, the figure he sought had disappeared.
“O, this weary, weary deceit!” sobbed Lucy, throwing herself on her knees by her bedside and weeping bitterly. Then, sighing, she rose, folded her mantle, and bathed her eyes before going to the sitting-room, where in a few more minutes her sewing-machine was rapidly beating until Septimus came and, with one loving hand laid across her red eyes, took away the candle.