"Gerald," said the girl mysteriously, "come up. Higher;—higher! If anybody calls here asking for a lady, darkish, with grey eyes, and middling tall,—never mind what name he says—! Don't breathe a word of it, but fetch me."
"Doesn't sound like you," said Gerald, but grinned, diving backwards into his native gloom.
Miss Robinson turned from the basement stairs and began her long journey to the top of the house. No, wild horses would not drag her out that night. Did they always write down a traveller's address at the shipping office? Supposing it were her lot to draw two sundered hearts together?
The Rabbit Warren was a depressing house. As the day waned its dreariness increased; it grew fuller of tired women whose search for work had been useless, and who came trudging in with the twilight to join the rest who had been listening all day with straining ears for the postman, while they studied ceaselessly the advertisement sheets in the daily paper.
It was chiefly the incapable, the discouraged, those who had fallen out of the ranks through ill health, or were losing their hold because they were not any longer young, who drifted into this harbour. They were all in a manner waifs, and they had nothing to hope for but that they might die in harness.
Susan sat with her cheek on her hand, withdrawn a little, in the dingy sitting room. She was unconscious of the whispering interest she excited; she did not hear the subdued discussion that raged around her. But the atmosphere of the house weighed on her, charged as it was with failure. It was robbing her of courage.
How strange it was to look back; almost unbearable. How hard it was to look forward. She was to sail to-morrow ... she must be brave....
The girl who had struck up a casual alliance with her sat amidst the others, ripping the ragged binding off a skirt. Her sallow face was less heavy than usual, her eyes alight.
She had glanced up quickly as Susan came in, and had begun to hum a tune, snipping fast. It had been impossible to resist the temptation to crystallise wandering speculation and focus the general attention for awhile on herself by a few dark hints and thereupon thrilling silence. The rest fell with a pathetic eagerness on the brief distraction that lightened their dreary lives. They had outlived their own little histories; no excitement touched any of them but the recurrent terror of wanting bread.
All at once Miss Robinson laid down her scissors and listened intently to something she heard without.