No, she had gone too far; it was too late to turn back; yet she felt, as she crossed the threshold, it was the one thing she longed to do. Though Mrs. Wollenhope hastened to light two candles that stood on a table, the parlour and the shapes of the furniture swam before Sophia's eyes. The two candles seemed to be four, six, eight; nay, the room was all candles, dancing before her. She had to lean on a chair to steady herself.
By-and-by Mrs. Wollenhope's voice, for a time heard droning dully, became clear. "He was up above," the good woman was saying. "But he's not here much. He lives at the taverns of the quality, mostly. 'Twas but yesterday he told me, ma'am, he was going to be married. You can wait here till nine, and I'll come and fetch you then, if he has not come in. But you'd best be thinking, if you'll take my advice, what you'll do."
"Now, Eliza!" Mr. Wollenhope roared from below; to judge from the sound of his voice he had come to the foot of the stairs. "Advising again, I'm bound. Always advising! Some day your tongue will get you into trouble, my woman. You come down and leave the young lady to herself."
"Oh, very well," Mrs. Wollenhope muttered, tossing her head impatiently. "I'm coming. Coming!" And shielding her light with her hand, she went out and left Sophia alone.
The girl remained where she had paused on entering, a little within the door, her hand resting on a chair. And presently, as she looked about her, the colour began to creep into her face. This was his home, and at the thought she forgot the past; she dreamed of the future. His home! Here he had sat thinking of her. Here he had written the letter! Here, perhaps in that cupboard set low in the wainscot beside the fire, lay the secret papers of which he had told her, the Jacobite lists that held a life in every signature, the Ormonde letters, the plans for the Scotch Rising, the cipher promises from France! Here, surrounded by perils, he wrote and studied far into the night, the pistol beside the pen, the door locked, the keyhole stopped. Here he had lain safe and busy, while the hated Whig approvers drew their nets elsewhere. Sophia breathed more quickly as she pictured these things; as she told herself the story Othello told the Venetian maid. The attraction of the man, the magic of the lover, dormant during the stress she had suffered since she left Arlington Street, revived; the girl's eyes grew soft, blushes mantled over her cheeks. She looked round timidly, almost reverently, not daring to advance, not daring to touch anything.
The room, which was not large, was wainscotted from ceiling to floor with spacious panels, divided one from the other by fluted pillars in shallow relief, after the fashion of that day. The two windows were high, narrow, and roundheaded, deeply sunk in the panelling. The fireplace, in which a few embers smouldered, was of Dutch tiles. On the square oak table in the middle of the floor, a pack of cards lay beside the snuffer tray, between the tall pewter candlesticks.
She noted these things greedily, and then, alas, she fell from the clouds. Mrs. Wollenhope had said that he had lived in the rooms above until lately! Still, he had sat here, and these were his belongings, which she saw strewn here and there. The book laid open on the high-backed settle that flanked one side of the hearth, and masked the door of an inner room, had been laid there by his hand. The cloak that hung across the back of one of the heavy Cromwell chairs was his. The papers and inkhorn, pushed carelessly aside on one of the plain wooden window-seats, had been placed there by him. His were the black riding-wig, the whip, and spurs, and tasselled cane, that hung on a hook in a corner, and the wig-case that stood on a table against the wall, alongside a crumpled cravat, and a jug and two mugs. All these--doubtless all these were his. Sophia, flustered and softened, her heart beating quick with a delicious emotion, half hope, half fear, sat down on the chair by the door and gazed at them.
He was more to her now, while she sat in his room and looked at these things, than he had ever been; and though the moment was at hand when his reception of her must tell her all, her distrust of him had never been less. If he did not love her with the love she pictured, why had he chosen her? He whose career promised so much, who under the cloak of frivolity pursued aims so high, amid perils so real. He must love her! He must love her! She thought this almost aloud, and seeing the wicks of the candles growing long, rose and snuffed them; and in the performance of this simple act of ownership, experienced a strange thrill of pleasure.
After that she waited awhile on her feet, looking about her shyly, and listening. Presently, hearing no sound, she stepped timidly and on tip-toe to the side table, and lifting the crumpled cravat, smoothed it, then, with caressing fingers, folded it neatly and laid it back. Again she listened, wondering how long she had waited. No, that was not a step on the stairs; and thereat her heart began to sink. The reaction of hope deferred began to be felt. What if he did not come? What if she waited, and nine found her still waiting--waiting vainly in this quiet room where the lights twinkled in the polished panels, and now and again the ash of the coal fell softly to the hearth? It might--it might be almost nine already!
She began to succumb to a new fever of suspense, and looked about for something to divert her thoughts. Her eyes fell on the book that lay open on the seat of the settle. Thinking, "He has read this to-day--his was the last hand that touched it--on this page his eyes rested," Sophia stooped for it, and holding it carefully that she might keep the place for him, reverently, for it was his, she carried it to the light. The title at the head of the page was The Irish Register. The name smacked so little of diversion, she thought it a political tract--for the book was thin, no more than fifty pages or so; and she was setting it back on the table when her eye, in the very act of leaving the page, caught the glint, as it were, of a name. Beside the name, on the margin, were a few pencilled words and figures; but these, faintly scrawled, she did not heed at the moment.