"The fare can take my coach," the voice answered imperiously; and in a twinkling, a smartly dressed woman, wearing red and white and plenty of both, yet handsome after a fashion, had pushed, first her hoop and then herself out of the coach. "See here, ma'am," she cried, seeing Sophia's scared face, "the coach is paid, and will take you anywhere in reason. 'Twill make no difference to you and all to me, and a mite of good nature is never thrown away! I've to go where a coach cannot go. Up a court, you understand."
Sophia hesitated. Why did not the lady, whose bold eyes did not much commend her, pursue her way to Portugal Street, and descend there, where chairs might be had in plenty? Or why, again, was she in such a clamorous hurry and so importunate? On the other hand, if all were right, nothing could have fallen out more happily for herself; it was no wonder that, after a momentary hesitation, she gave a grudging assent. One of the chairmen, who seemed willing enough to make the change, opened the door; she stepped out and mechanically climbed into the coach. "To Davies Street, Mayfair," she said, sinking back. "To Mr. Wollenhope's, if you please."
Quickly as she took her part, the strange lady was quicker; in a second she was in the chair and the chair was gone. It seemed to vanish. A moment and the coach also started, and lumbered westwards along Brewer Street. Now at last Sophia was at liberty to consider--with no obstacle short of Mr. Wollenhope's door--how she should present herself to her lover, and how it behoved him to receive her.
She found it more easy to answer the second question than the first. Well indeed she knew how it became him to receive her. If in men survived any delicacy, any reverence, any gratitude, these were her due who came to him thus; these must appear in his greeting, or the worst guided, the most hapless of maids, was happy beside her. He must show himself lover, brother, parent, friend, in his one person; for he was her all. The tenderest homage, the most delicate respect, a tact that foreran offence, a punctilio that saw it everywhere, the devotion of a Craven, the gratitude of a Peterborough, were her right who came to him thus, a maiden trusting in his honour. She was clear on this; and not once or twice, but many times, many times as she pressed one hand on the other and swallowed the tell-tale lump that rose and rose in her throat, she swore that if she did not meet with these, if he did not greet her with them, plain in eye and lip--aye, and with a thousand dainty flowers of love, a thousand tender thoughts and imaginings, not of her, but for her--she had better have been the mud through which the wheels of her coach rolled!
It was natural enough that, so near, so very near the crisis, she should feel misgiving. The halt in the dark street, the chill of the night air, had left her shivering; had left her with an overwhelming sense of loneliness and homelessness. The question was no longer how to escape from a prison, but how, having escaped, she would be received by him, who must be her all. The dice were on the table, the throw had been made, and made for life; it remained only to lift the box. For a little, a very little while, since a matter of minutes only divided her from Davies Street, she hung between the old life and the new, her heart panting vaguely for the sympathy that had been lacking in the old life, for the love that the new life had in store. Would she find them? Child as she was, she trembled now that she stood on the brink. A few minutes and she would know. A few minutes, and----
The coach stopped suddenly, with a jerk that flung her forward. She looked out, her heart beating. She was ready to descend. But surely this was not Davies Street? The road was very dark. On the left, the side on which the door opened, a dead wall, overhung by high trees, confronted her.
"Where am I?" she cried, her hand on the fastening of the door, her voice quivering with sudden fright. "We are not there?"
"You are as far as you'll go, mistress," a rough voice answered from the darkness. "Sorry to alter your plans. A fine long chase you've given us." And from the gloom at the horses' heads, two men advanced to the door of the coach.
She took them for footpads. The dead wall had much the appearance of the wall of Burlington Gardens, where it bounds Glasshouse Street; at that spot, she remembered, a coach had been robbed the week before. She prepared to give up her money, and was groping with a trembling hand for a little knitted purse, when the men, still grumbling, opened the door.
"I suppose you know what's what," the foremost said. "At suit of Margott's of Paul's Churchyard. You'll go to my house, I take it? You'll be more genteel there."