“Andrew Britton, the savage smith; because he is to die before me. Ha! Ha! Yes, Andrew Britton will die before I do.”
With wild laughter she flew rather than ran across the bridge in the direction of Lambeth, and her voice echoed in the still morning air, as she shrieked,—
“Andrew Britton—Andrew Britton—I am not dead!—Not dead yet!”
The watchman stared after her in amazement, and Ada took the opportunity, while he was thus fully engaged, of walking quickly onwards until she had cleared the bridge and the solemn spires of Westminster Abbey came upon her sight.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Ada’s Wanderings.—The Pearl Necklace.—A Kind Heart.—The Park.—A Joyous Meeting.—The Arrangement.
Cold and hunger now began to exercise a sensible influence upon the fragile frame of Ada. Her step became languid and slow, and she began to feel that her strength was fast deserting her. Her dislike to return to Jacob Gray was very great, and yet where else in that great city could she find a place whereon to lay her aching limbs? The sense of her own extreme destitution came vividly across her imagination, and had it not been for the curious gaze of the early passengers she met, she could have wept freely in her bitterness of heart. Listlessly she walked onwards, and thought, from its very intensity, became at last a positive pain. Money she had none; and, in fact, so secluded from the world had she been kept by the fears of Jacob Gray, that she would not have known how to procure the means of supporting life, even had she possessed valuable property about her.
A cold, glaring winter’s sun shone forth from a clear sky, mocking the earth with an appearance of warmth, which made the sharp wind that whistled round the corners of the streets seem doubly keen and piercing.
“Must I return to that dismal house?” thought Ada—“must I again throw myself on the mercy of that man who calls himself my father?”
She paused in doubt and irresolution, and no one who passed could fail to mark the air of deep dejection which sat upon the pale anxious face of the young girl.