After leaving that bench finally, she walked into the town as if on business of urgency, but of no alarm. It would not do to seem careless of her route or speed; it would not do to seem eagerly in haste; it would not do to seem as though she was strange to the place. She had no fear but that shy fear of attracting attention instinctively developed in those who flee, no matter from what they flee.
She wandered through many streets and roads that day, but took no note of them. She adopted a plan to avoid losing her bearings. There were six roads leading out of Millway. She took them one after the other from her left hand, went forward upon each a thousand steps, counting each step in her mind, and then came back to the point from which she had started, also counting each step as she returned. This prevented her wandering far, or losing her way. Counting the steps kept her mind fully occupied, and prevented her noticing the fatigue, or becoming unhappily conscious of her unusual position.
Upon comparing the numbers of outward and backward steps, she found that the stretch of road which measured a thousand from town, measured never more than nine hundred and fifty back. As soon as she turned towards Millway, although she knew the station would not be open when she arrived there, she unconsciously increased the length of each pace.
Only once in her monotonous and fatiguing task did anything unpleasant come in her path, and then the unpleasant object was a plain white-washed wall. Yet it gave her a sick thrill of terror. Fortunately it was in her last radiation from Millway.
She was quite unfamiliar with the town. She had never seen it until the day before, and then only as the fly drove from the station to Eltham House. This morning she had determined her course from left to right, taking the wide and open streets, down which she could see far. She passed by several ways which did not look main arteries of traffic. When it was half an hour of train time, she left behind two narrow and unpromising-looking streets, and coming upon the broadest and most open one she had yet encountered, committed herself to it without hesitation, merely making the reflection, "This is my last turn. It will be time to go to the station when I reach this corner again."
After that she took no heed of the street in which she was, but kept on. Fatigue, and the knowledge that her walk was approaching an end, made her duller and more indifferent than before. She did not look around her. She counted her steps in a purely mechanical manner. They, as it were, went on counting themselves without effort on her part. It is doubtful if she then could have stopped the enumeration. Her plan up to this had been to count up to a hundred and then begin again, closing up a finger for each five score told.
The road was not straight. She did not notice that at the end of the first hundred, the street had narrowed, and the flagging ceased. Before the end of the second hundred was chronicled, the pathway disappeared, the houses grew mean and dilapidated. Before she counted two hundred and fifty, she was traversing an alley, filthy under foot, with battered, squalid houses and hovels on either side. This was the most foul and disreputable part of Millway. It was inhabited by the unfortunate, the dissolute, and the disreputable. No one of good repute and appearance had been down there for years and years.
She saw nothing of what lay around her, did not notice the filthy, rutty ground on which she trod; did not observe the windless, noisome air through which she moved.
All at once she drew up with a quick start, and uttered a suppressed cry of alarm. She was in front of a blank white-washed wall. She glanced around in terror, looking for an avenue of escape. There was none except the way by which she had come. She found herself at the end of a frowsy, villainous-looking cul-de-sac.
She shuddered and stood still, not knowing for the moment what to do. There was no going forward; to go back, was to confess she had lost her way. Even the white radiance of the morning could not make that close, fœtid, ruinous street look innocent. It had vice and crime written too deeply on its evil face. Fortunately, no one was stirring in the street, but each house and hovel had windows, and windows of fearful aspect, and behind these windows she imagined hideous winking eyes, and fleering faces. What, if some one, some hulking, slouching figure, should shamble out of one of those sinister doorways, and plant itself in the middle of the lane, blocking up her path, and forbidding her flight!