Simon Hart's continued absence awoke in Rachel a troubled amazement, the more, as her grandfather constantly asked for him and she had to invent excuses for his non-appearance; but she had little time for reflection as the household in the Street of Masts was now put to sad shifts. Poor folk are ever separated from want by the meagrest of protections. They are like soldiers cowering behind a crumbling embankment. Time, bringing the ever recurrent needs, is their indefatigable enemy, and when these needs are multiplied, as in sickness, with small chance for patching the wall, they can ill withstand the siege. Finally there came an evening when Emily Short, with a look of shame on her open countenance, repaired to a certain shop around the corner, and thereafter no day passed when old David lacked for any comfort, as no day passed when some article was not missing from the bare little rooms.
"Let me go just this once," Rachel besought one evening early in February, confronting the toy-maker, who was preparing to go out. "If you wait to go around there—you know where I mean—you'll be late at Madame Stedenthal's. You know she said eight o'clock; and you wouldn't want to miss getting that order."
"But I don't like to have you," Emily protested.
Rachel motioned toward the room: "Run along. Grandfather's asleep; I'll slip out and be back before he 'wakes." ...
She quitted the shop, pressing a hand to her burning cheeks. Then, thrilled by the consciousness of the silver in her pocket, she hurried forward. She had gone only a few steps when someone touched her arm. She turned and saw Simon Hart.
Manifestly he had been following her: on his face was stamped a look of commiseration and embarrassment.
At once her old imperious pride was alive. Shrinking fiercely from the observation and sympathy of this man, she spoke curtly:
"I'm very glad to have met you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll say good-night; Grandfather is alone."
She swung round so that he could no longer see her deeply wounded face; he saw only her hat and part of her veil and her long shabby cloak.
"Miss Beckett—Rachel!" he exclaimed, in a note of despairing appeal. "May I not go up to see your grandfather? I have been away—I have just returned. I did not wait; I was so anxious," he concluded. And he looked anxious.