She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear than tenderness; and still holding him, walked to the cab-door.
‘Where are we to drive?’ asked Harry.
‘Home, quickly,’ she answered; ‘double fare!’ And as soon as they had both mounted to their places, the vehicle crazily trundled from the station.
Teresa leaned back in a corner. The whole way Harry could perceive her tears to flow under her veil; but she vouchsafed no explanation. At the door of the house in Queen Square, both alighted; and the cabman lowered the box, which Harry, glad to display his strength, received upon his shoulders.
‘Let the man take it,’ she whispered. ‘Let the man take it.’
‘I will do no such thing,’ said Harry cheerfully; and having paid the fare, he followed Teresa through the door which she had opened with her key. The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning errands; the house was empty and still; and as the rattling of the cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to ascend the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders the same faint and muffled ticking as before. The lady, still preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower the box tenderly in the corner by the window.
‘And now,’ said Harry, ‘what is wrong?’
‘You will not go away?’ she cried, with a sudden break in her voice and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience. ‘O Harry, Harry, go away! Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I deserve!’
‘The fate?’ repeated Harry. ‘What is this?’
‘No fate,’ she resumed. ‘I do not know what I am saying. But I wish to be alone. You may come back this evening, Harry; come again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!’ And then suddenly, ‘I have an errand,’ she exclaimed; ‘you cannot refuse me that!’