The answer to the taunt was a cold look, which Agnes Hardon saw and felt; for the next moment she was weeping passionately. “Why do you track and follow me, sir?” she exclaimed through her tears. “Let me go; you hurt my arm!”
“Will you stand and answer my questions, then?” said the curate, as they now stood at the entrance of the court—a dark, gloomy archway, with a doorway here and there.
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Agnes wearily, “if you will be quick; but there, I know what you would say, and it is of no use; I am past all that!”
“Past all what?” cried the curate sternly.
“Hope of better things,” said the woman with so weary and despondent a wail, that her hearer shuddered.
“Hush!” he said; “you speak rashly, and without thinking;” and releasing her wrist, he laid his hand gently upon her arm. “Listen,” he said; “you have your woman’s feelings yet!”
“No,” she replied hastily, “all—all gone; driven out of me—dead. Let me go, please; it’s late, sir. I am a wretch, and it is useless to talk.”
“But why do you pursue that young girl?” he said, pointing across the street to where Bennett’s-rents debouched. “Would you tempt her to be your companion?”
“No, no, no; my God, no!” half-shrieked Agnes, as she caught at his hands; “don’t think that, sir.”
“Then you have some womanly feeling left,” said Mr Sterne.