CHAPTER II
FLIGHT
In her utter helplessness
Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry,
As of a wild thing, taken in a trap,
Which sees the trapper coming through the wood.
—TENNYSON.
Outside, the raw March day was drawing to its unbeautiful close. They crept together along by the railings, as sorry a couple of cripples as ever started forth into the world together. Young Vanston could not walk without reeling—the only thing that held him in control was his anxiety respecting the girl, whose face was still ashen, and who gasped and panted as she moved. He had solicitously felt her ribs—a proceeding rendered easy by her thinness and emptiness, poor child. He had ascertained that no bones were broken, though the pain was severe, and he vaguely diagnosed it to himself as "something internal."
But she was driven by some overmastering impulse of flight which blotted out even the physical distress. To get away was her idea. She had been willing to do so at the cost of life itself. But now that life persisted, and she had escaped from her prison, the desire to live returned in some obscure, muffled fashion. As for him, his apprehensions on her account had for the moment driven clean out of his mind his own desperate intention.
Coming out of Hawkins Row, they crawled along a dark, dreary alley, which brought them out into a main thoroughfare, where traffic of all kinds roared and seethed. Just at the corner a cocoa-room poured its blaze of newly-lit gas across the street.
"Pull yourself together and get across the floor steady," whispered Felix; and the two crept in, and with a last effort sank down into seats in a far corner, near the stove.
It was not a cold evening, except to the starving, and the table which stood inconveniently near the stove was vacant. The girl wore no hat, but, except for this deficiency, they were, in point of costume, rather above than below the average of those present.
Felix had the sense to know that he must not "wolf" his food, or he would increase, and not allay, the pain that rent him. He sat forcing himself to sip the warm cocoa, which tasted like the nectar of the gods. The girl was not so ravenous as he; she had been fed the day before. She was very scared and timid, starting at each new customer that entered, in fear lest it should be the man she dreaded. She sat with her eyes upon the door, keeping a ceaseless guard. For about a quarter of an hour they did not speak.
But when the first demands of bodily craving were satisfied they began to talk.
"Tell me your name," said the girl, peremptorily.