The Foundling Hospital? It was a comfort to her in her present forlorn condition to think of all that that great house of human pity and sympathy had done for innumerable deserted and friendless orphans.
For the first time in her life she was assailed by that most unnerving of companions, “Little Devil Doubt.” What she was about to do was surely a terrible risk? If she failed, as she might well fail, and her desperate enterprise were to become known, would she not be universally condemned? Might it not even get into the papers? Harry Garlett’s betrothed taking a place as a servant for his sake! She could almost picture the terrible headlines! She felt so nervous, so excited, that when the deep voice of her conductor suddenly interrupted her anxious self-questioning, she stumbled, and would have fallen had not he put out his hand.
“If you just turn down to the left here,” said the man, “and then turn sharp to the right, the house you want will be within three or four of the corner of the square.”
In response to her word of thanks, he took off his hat and went his way. Jean then walked on slowly, and now and again she stopped. This was her last chance to change her mind, to give up what she well knew most of the people who had known and respected her in her short life would consider a crazy adventure.
When she came to the end of the long street which led into the square she pressed her cold hand across her face. Her eyes were smarting, partly with the fog, partly from the tears she had shed in the night. She felt unutterably sad and discouraged, and yet deep in her heart she longed to engage in what she believed would be a duel between herself and that strange woman, Agatha Cheale.
If Lucy Warren’s tale were true, Agatha Cheale was the one person in the world who had had a vital reason for desiring Mrs. Garlett’s death.
Throwing off “Little Devil Doubt,” Jean decided to go on. She crossed over to the corner house of the square. To her left she could dimly discern the railings of the narrow garden facing the dark houses to her right.
There was no one in sight, and she felt strangely eerie walking along the wide uneven pavement trying to make out the number on each door. Even the street lamps seemed to gleam more dimly here than elsewhere.
She found 109. Then the gloomy-looking unlit house with the portico must be 106.
Blindly she groped for a bell, and at last she felt a row of knobs. As her fingers slid over them uncertainly there came over her a sudden feeling of acute fear. What if Agatha Cheale should open the door and recognize her?