Her pace was hurried, like that of a person intent on some important mission, and having some defined and positive end in view:—and yet she had even forgotten the motive that had sent her forth into the streets that evening, to dare the cold wind and face the pattering rain,—she who had but so scanty a clothing to protect her!
There was a humming noise in her ears: but she could not discriminate the sounds of voices from the roll of carriages;—and even when she crossed a street, it was through no caution exercised on her part that she was not ran over.
At last her ideas began to assume a more settled shape; and her thoughts, rescuing themselves as it were from utter confusion, settled gradually down into their proper cells in the brain—the racking brain which held them!
She walked slower, and with more apparent uncertainty of aim; objects assumed a defined shape to her eyes; and her ears recognised the various sounds which raised the echoes of the streets.
At length she stood still in the midst of Holborn, and tears burst from her eyes; for she now remembered that she was there—there, in the wide and open thoroughfare—to commence the dread avocation of a prostitute!
She shuddered from head to foot—but with no ordinary tremor: it was a convulsion which began at the very heart, and vibrated with electric rapidity and spasmodic violence throughout the entire form.
"Now then, young voman—out o' the vay!" cried a porter carrying a huge load upon his head.
And, like a startled deer, Matilda hurried along.
She glanced to the left and to the right, and beheld magnificent shops teeming with merchandise, and crowded with purchasers:—she lingered in front of the pastry-cooks' establishments;—and she stopped to devour with her eyes the smoking joints, the piles of vegetables, and the large tins full of pudding, in the windows of the eating-houses!
But she knew it was useless to implore a meal;—and moreover it was something beyond food that she required,—for money to pay her heartless landlord she must have!