After that we were both silent for some minutes. We could hear the peaceful lapping of the water at our feet, and its boom against the rocks, and the shrieking of the sea-gulls; but there was utter silence between us two. I felt as if it would break my heart to leave this place, and go whither I knew not. Yet there was no alternative.
"Tardif," I said at last, "I will go first to London. It is so large a place, nobody will find me there. Besides, they would never think of me going back to London. When I am there I will try to get a situation as governess somewhere. I could teach little children; and if I go into a school there will be no one to fall in love with me, like Dr. Martin. I am very sorry for him."
"Sorry for him!" repeated Tardif.
"Yes, very sorry," I replied; "it is as if I must bring trouble everywhere. You are troubled, and I cannot help it."
"I have only had one trouble as great," he said, as if to himself, "and that was when my poor little wife died. I wish to God I could keep you here in safety, but that is impossible."
"Quite impossible," I answered.
Yet it seemed too bad to be true. What had I done, to be driven away from this quiet little home into the cold, wide world? Poor and friendless, after all my father's far-seeing plans and precautions to secure me from poverty and friendlessness! What was to be my lot in that dismal future, over the rough threshold of which I must cross to-morrow?
Tardif and I talked it all over that evening, sitting at the cottage-door until the last gleam of daylight had faded from the sky. He had some money in hand just then, which he had intended to invest the next time he went to Guernsey, and could see his notary. This money, thirty pounds, he urged me to accept as a gift; but I insisted upon leaving with him my watch and chain in pledge, until I could repay the money. It would be a long time before I could do that, I knew; for I was resolved never to return to Richard Foster, and to endure any privation rather than claim my property.
I left Tardif after a while, to pack up my very few possessions. We did not tell his mother that I was going, for he said it would be better not. In the morning he would simply let her know I was going over to Guernsey. No communication had ever passed between the old woman and me except by signs, yet I should miss even her in that cold, careless crowd in which I was about to be lost, in the streets of London.
We started at four in the morning, while the gray sky was dappled over with soft clouds, and the sea itself seemed waking up from sleep, as if it too had been slumbering through the night. The morning mist upon the cliffs made them look mysterious, as if they had some secrets to conceal. Untrodden tracks climbed the surface of the rocks, and were lost in the fine filmy haze. The water looked white and milky, with lines across it like the tracks on the cliffs, which no human foot could tread; and the tide was coming back to the shore with a low, tranquil, yet sad moan. The sea-gulls skimmed past us with their white wings, almost touching us; their plaintive wailing seeming to warn us of the treachery and sorrow of the sea. I was not afraid of the treachery of the sea, yet I could not bear to hear them, nor could Tardif.