It would have been about eight o'clock of the morning by this time; and workmen passed her with the firm tread and the cheery "Good-morning, miss," which are still to be seen and heard within ten miles of the metropolis. At first she scarcely had the courage to ask where she was; for she realized how strangely the question must fall upon other ears at such a time and under such circumstances; but plucking up her courage presently as a lad approached her, she stopped him and learned that this was the village of Pinner, and that it lay just thirteen miles from London.
"Yonder's the station, miss, just round there to the right. I suppose you've walked over from Harrow. Lots of ladies do now they've took to hockey. I don't like that—not me. It hurts the shins unless you've got thick 'uns like the new girls has."
He was quite a conversationalist, the boy, and he rambled on with a precise account of his own intimate affairs, dating from the happy anniversary of a present of five shillings from a gentleman in a "broke-in-half" motor car to the recent arrival of a little sister, with whom he expected he would shortly quarrel. One of his most cheerful items of information was that which revealed the near proximity of an inn, styled by him "a public"; but which, nevertheless, brought to Evelyn such visions of hot steaming coffee and new warm bread and a fireside whereby she might thaw her frozen hands that she bestowed a whole shilling upon him willingly; and for that he, as a true cavalier, conducted her immediately to the hostelry.
"And I do hope you'll walk over from Harrow another morning, and that I'll meet you in the lane," he said with an interested and mercenary laugh delightful to hear. It was good after all to listen to the sound of an honest voice. And this boy spoke in the accustomed tongue of men.
She found the people of the inn awake and bustling. The story told for her by the loquacious lad was a very open sesame. A dear old lady with a very dirty face ushered her into a prim parlor and put out the Sunday tea service. Workmen in the bar raised their voices for her benefit, and one of them narrated at length how formerly he had kept a servant at "twenty shilling a week, same as you get, Bill." The coffee, however, could not have been better. Evelyn drank it greedily, and, learning that there were trains to London frequently, she caught one at ten o'clock and by a little after half-past she was in a hansom going down to Baker Street.
Her direction to the cabman had been "the Carlton Theatre"—why exactly she could not say. Naturally, she felt shy for the moment of returning to her hotel, dishevelled and weary as she was. The theatre would be open, she knew; for a rehearsal had been called at twelve o'clock, and the great Mr. Izard expected her there to hear of a new play which he had already passed as "bully." Fortunately for her, she slipped by old Jacob at the stage door so quietly that he was quite unaware of her presence ... and then going to her own dressing-room, to her chagrin she discovered it to be locked and remembered that her maid had the key.
They had set a scene upon the stage, the garden scene of "Haddon Hall"; and weird and cold and melancholy was its aspect in this morning light. To Evelyn it seemed as an emblem of those scenes of her girlhood which she had forever quitted. The loneliness of her life, the pity of it, the quenched fires of ambition—thoughts of these came to her one by one and said "there is no longer hope in the world." Etta Romney, that daughter of passion and the soul's unrest, love had killed her, and never would she be reborn. There stood in her place an Evelyn who believed herself to be utterly alone, forsaken of all, even of him who had taught her the supreme lesson of her being. For her father she had an abiding pity. The harvest he had reaped had been of his own sowing; but her affection for him rose above any consideration of judgment and she accused herself because she had left him in the hour of trial. For the rest the dreadful story of the night remained her chief burden. To whom should she tell it; who must be her confidant? Should she run hysterically to the police, saying, "I believe that a crime has been committed in an unknown house at Hampstead?" To whose profit! The two men might have met in fair fight according to the custom of their country. And would anyone be found in the house by even the cleverest detective after those hours had passed! She knew not which would be the prudent course. Her own despair spoke louder than any claim of human justice.
The great Mr. Izard appeared at the theatre at eleven o 'clock. His first cheery greeting to her ended abruptly when he perceived the state of distress into which she had fallen ... her haggard eyes, her white face, the restlessness of mood and quick changing attitudes which betrayed her.
"Miss Romney!" he exclaimed aghast, "are you ill, my dear? ... Good God! what has happened?"
"I cannot play to-day," she said.... "I am going to my home, Mr. Izard, to my father. I shall never play in your theatre again. My acting days are done."