The minutes passed, infinitely long to her now impatient mood. The spots of rain kept falling. The neighbouring clock boomed out the quarters. At last another hansom—coming from the abandoned direction! Back she went again into the road, but it had stopped short farther down. The studio was still in darkness. Strangely disappointed and fatigued almost to the point of falling, she dragged her worn feet once more down to the Embankment, keeping her wits alert with a sustained effort, that grew harder and harder. This time she did not cross to the parapet, but walked under the great red brick houses, noticing idly their gates and doorways as they loomed on her. And her eyes were half closed in spite of her struggle. The trot of a horse, and the rattle and tinkle of a hansom sounded just then, coming smartly along the avenue. But she went on more and more as if in a dream, taking one step only because she had taken the last. Nearer and nearer came the hansom, louder and louder beat the horse's hoofs on the asphalte, but she pursued her meaningless way, without paying any heed to it. Her senses had almost left her. She opened her eyes suddenly, and, looking towards the river, saw that a greyish mist hung over it, that the pavements were wet and glistening. Ah, yes, the water lay below, dark and soft, full of an eternal peace. The message that had baffled her!—she understood it now! She had nothing to live for! In a flash all would be finished. Impulsively she stepped into the roadway to cross to the parapet.
"Hallo, hallo!" The horse's head was almost on her, and she drew back with a natural unreasoned movement. The driver shook his whip and shouted angrily, then went onwards. But a moment's vision had burnt itself on her consciousness as deep as that first sight of the portrait of Lady Lakeden. Wyndham was seated in the vehicle side by side with Lady Lakeden, his face turned towards her, whilst her hand clutched his convulsively. And in that same swift moment Alice had felt Lady Lakeden's face encounter hers with mutual intensity. The sudden backward movement had almost paralysed her muscles; an agonising pain racked her at her knees and ankles. She dragged herself to the nearest wall and leaned against it. The picture of those two side by side was always with her: of Lady Lakeden's eyes flashing full on her own.
She knew not how many minutes had passed when she was called to herself by the inexorable clock that had sounded its notes throughout this strange evening, and that now seemed to fling its boom through all the spaces of the night. Was the universe resounding with a peal of mockery?—disproportionately Titanic for so humble a soul as hers, so paltry a destiny? Ah, she remembered now her frustrated purpose; the instant when death had beckoned her imperiously and she had responded with every fibre of her soul and body. Why, then, had she not let the wheels crush her?
But she shuddered. Ah, no, no! Thank Heaven she had been inspired to save herself. How his life would have been saddened and embittered by so ironic an accident! She had meant only to help him; never to be a cause of grief to him! Since apparently it had been thus fated, better perhaps to live on. "I have others as well to think of—father and mother!" she murmured. "How wicked it was of me to forget them! Besides, as I never expected anything in life, why should I be disappointed now at getting nothing?" The argument seemed convincing, so painfully she began to hobble along the Embankment, moving again towards the familiar street, why she knew not. But her lips kept muttering, to herself. "She has gone with him alone to his studio. She is a wicked woman."
And opposite the house, that had held her brilliant hopes of love and wonderful happiness for so brief a period, she stood still again, and looked up to the great window of the studio that was now illumined with a warm light, though everywhere else the house was dark. She saw a shadow flit across the blind, and then another shadow. They were there together.
How they would stare if she boldly used her key and intruded upon them! How they would tremble if they knew she was there, straining for a glimpse of their shadows!
But she had no impulse now to disturb them. The game had been played, and she had been thrown out.
With a sigh she moved away, turning her painful steps up the street, more instinctively than consciously. She walked and walked mechanically, retracing the route she had taken on her way there. The rain descended in thin, sharp lines, but she took no heed. But suddenly an arm was thrust through hers, and she looked round with a terrible start. A burly flush-faced man with a ruffled silk hat was holding an umbrella over her, was speaking to her. Her eye noticed irrelevantly they were just by a closed dark public-house whose nickel reflectors caught the light from an adjoining street-lamp.
"Hadn't you better take me home with you, my dear?"
For a second she stared at him, then, with a hoarse cry, she shook herself free, and with a supreme effort rushed off like a frightened fawn. As she turned into another street she overtook a hansom going at a snail's pace.