The woman turned to the left, and, taking the tow-path, as she had one night before, set out in the direction of Welford. She wore her veil closely drawn over her disfigured face. Her step was more firm and elastic than in the afternoon. Then she had been on her way to seek physical relief; now she was on her way to alleviate her heart.
She left the tow-path by the approach at Welford, and gained the bridge. The usual group of loungers and loafers were there, but they took no notice of her. They could see by a glance at her that she was poor and miserable, and to be poor and miserable at Welford Bridge insured one against close observation or inquisitive speculation--it was to wear the uniform of the place.
She leaned against the parapet, and gazed at the canal side of Boland's Ait. Everything there was as usual: the floating-stage being moored by the side of the islet, as it had been on the night she tried to draw it across the water.
She turned her eyes on the other side of the island, and started. She saw what she had never seen before: the floating-stage stretching across the water of the bay, making a bridge from one bank to the other. This discovery set her heart beating fast, for if one could only get on Crawford's Quay one could cross over the stage to the Ait.
Hitherto all her hopes had been centred on the stage lying along the islet on the canal side. Now the best chance of gaining the holm lay on the side of the bay.
Crawford's Quay was not used for purposes of trade now, all the buildings being vacant except the house in which Layard lived.
The daylight was almost gone, and the heavy banks of cloud shrouded earth in a dull deep gloom--a gloom deeper than that of clear midnight in this month of June.
Kate Mellor turned again to her left and walked to the top of Crawford Street. She looked down it. All was dark except the one lamp burning like an angry eye at the bottom. As she was perfectly certain no one could recognise her, she went into Crawford Street without much trepidation. She kept on the left-hand side: the one opposite to Crawford's House.
The window of the sitting-room was fully open for air. In the room were four people: a man with a long beard, whom she did not know; a girl with golden-brown hair, whom she had more than once seen take Freddie from her husband at the end of the stage; and a second man whom she could not see, for his back was towards her. And her husband. They were all just in the act of sitting down to supper.
She knew the place and the ways of the people thoroughly. She had studied nothing else for days and days.