"You told me he'd be out about three. I was asking for Mr. Casey this morning."
"Oh, were you?" he said. "There's been a good many asking for him since then." He gradually recalled her. "Mr. Casey's gone," he added; "they finished early. He won't be here till to-night."
There was a week in which she went to the stage-door of the Queen's Theatre every day, at all hours, and at last she learnt casually that as many extra ladies as were required for the production had been engaged. There were months during which she persisted in her applications at other stage-doors and hope flickered within her still. But when September came, and a year had passed since her arrival, the expiring spark had faded into lassitude. She tried no longer. Only sometimes, out of the sickness of her soul, the impulse to write was born, and she picked up a pen.
Then it was definitely decided that she should return to America. It was characteristic of her that she had no sooner dried her eyes after the decision than she was restless to return at once; Duluth was no drearier than Wandsworth. Externally it was even picturesque, with the blue water and the sunshine, and the streets of white houses rising in tiers like a theatre; in Duluth the residents "looked down on one another" literally. The life was appalling, but when all was said, was it more limited than Aunt Lydia? And if, in lieu of acting, she dared aspire to dramatic authorship—the thought stirred her occasionally—she could work as well in Minnesota as in Middlesex. Cheriton had remitted the amount of her passage, and suggested that she should sail in a week or two. She had not received the draft two hours when she went up to town and booked a berth in the next steamer.
When it was done, she posted a note to Heriot, acquainting him with her intention. His visits had not been discontinued, but he came at much longer intervals latterly, and she could not go without bidding him good-bye.
She sat in the Lavender Street parlour the next evening, wondering if he would come. Almost she hoped that he would not. She had written, and therefore done her duty. To see him would, in the circumstances, humiliate her cruelly, she felt. She remembered how she had talked to him twelve months before—recalled her confidence, her pictures of a future that she was never to know, and her eyes smarted afresh. She had even failed to obtain a hearing. "What a fool, what an idiot I look!" she thought passionately.
Tea was over, but the maid-of-all-work had not removed the things; and when Heriot entered, the large loaf and the numerous knives, which are held indispensable to afternoon tea in Lavender Street, were still on the big round table. The aspect of the room did not strike him any more. He was familiar with it, like the view of the kitchen when the front door had been opened, and the glimpse of clothes-line in the yard beyond.
"May I come in?" he said. "Did you expect me?"
"Lor, it's Mr. Heriot!" said Mrs. Baines. "Fancy!"
She told the servant to take away the teapot, and to bring in another knife. He wondered vaguely what he was supposed to do with it.