In vain the aged couple watched and questioned, but Elizabeth's feminine tact and spirit outwitted them.
She fulfilled her duties patiently, as of yore, but would seize upon every possible pretext for remaining away from home, and now, during the week that her lover failed to appear at his cosy apartments, they had hardly seen her for more than a few moments each day.
Thus it was no wonder that to-night they watched and waited at their narrow windows while the hours stole by and still the wandering girl returned not to her pleasant home.
Back and forth over the great London Bridge she was walking; her head bent low; her blue eyes fixed and glaring; her pale lips compressed in bitter agony, while over and over again she paused and looked eagerly down into the sluggish water.
The bridge was jammed as usual with hurrying pedestrians and jostling carts, and few turned to look at the solitary figure.
Now and then a watchful "Bobby" stopped and stared into her face and more than one of these experienced officers read the signs of coming trouble in her pallid features.
But it was not their duty to ask her business or order her away. She was doing no harm and surely it would be but a meddlesome act on their part to try and avert the danger which they so plainly foresaw.
Still she walked on and on until the crowd was lessened and fewer officers remained on duty.
Just as the fog, rising from the river below and the smoke falling from the chimneys above, met and mingled in a pall of gloom and obscurity, she turned again, paused, looked once more into the darkness below, then vaulting suddenly to the massive rail, sprang lightly forward through the mists and down into the awful waters.