He muttered his surprise on seeing Tom, but made way for him, grumbling something about the late hour. When he saw the girl about to follow, however, he started, and seemed to be going to refuse her entrance. But Tom was of those who carry off by sheer force of arrogance a difficult situation. "My sister, Miss Maitland, is with me," he said. "She'll have my room to-night. Don't stare, fellow, but hold a light for the lady to go up."
The man's reluctance was evident; but he let them enter, and barred the door after them. Then snuffing his candle with his fingers, he held it up and surveyed them. "By gole," he said, chuckling, "you don't look much like bride and bridegroom!"
Tom stormed at him, but he only continued to grin. "You've been fighting!" he said.
"Well what's that to you, you rogue!" the lad answered sharply. "Light the lady up, do you hear?"
"To be sure! To be sure! But you'll be wanting a light in each room," he continued with a cunning look, as he halted at the head of a narrow boarded staircase, up which he had preceded them. "That's over and above, you'll remember. Candles here and candles there, a man's soon ruined!"
Tom bade him keep a civil tongue, and himself led the way into a quaint little three-cornered parlour, boarded like the staircase; beyond it was a bedroom of the same shape and size. The rooms had a small window apiece looking on the Row, and wore an air of snugness that would have appealed to Sophia had her eyes been open to anything but her troubles. Against the longer wall of the little parlour stood a couple of tall clocks; a third eked out the scanty furniture of the bedroom, and others, ticking with stealthy industry in the lower part of the house, whispered that it was a clock-maker's shop.
Sophia cared not. She felt no curiosity. She put no questions, but accepted in silence the dispositions her brother made for her comfort. Bruised and broken, fatigued in body, with a sorely aching heart she took the room he gave her, sleep offering all she could now hope for or look for, sleep bounding all her ambitions. In sleep--and at that moment the girl would fain have lain down not to rise again--she hoped to find a refuge from trouble, a shelter from thought, a haven where shame could not enter. To one in suspense, in doubt, in expectation, bed is a rack, a place of torture; but when the blow has fallen, the lot been drawn, the dulled sensibilities sink to rest in it as naturally as a bird in the nest--and as quickly find repose.
She slept as one stunned, but weak is the anodyne of a single night. She awoke in the morning, cured indeed of love by a radical operation, but still bleeding; still in fancy under the cruel knife, still writhing in remembered torture. To look forward, to avert her eyes from the past, was her sole hope; and speedily her mind grew clear; the future began to take shape. She would make use of Tom's good offices, and through him she would negotiate terms with her sister. She would not, could not, go back to Arlington Street! But any penance, short of that, she would undergo. If it pleased them she would go to Chalkhill; or in any other way that seemed good to them, she would expiate the foolish, and worse than foolish escapade of which she had been guilty. Life henceforth could be but a grey and joyless thing; provided she escaped the sneers and gibes of Arlington Street, she cared little where it was spent.
She was anxious to broach the subject at breakfast; but, through a natural reluctance to open it, she postponed the discussion as long as she dared. It was not like Tom to be over careful of her feelings; but he, too, appeared to be equally unwilling to revert to past unpleasantness. He fidgeted and seemed preoccupied; he rose frequently and sat down again; more than once he went to the window and looked out. At last he rose impulsively and disappeared in the bedroom.
By-and-by he returned. He was still in his morning cap and loose wrapper, but he carried a shirt over each arm. "Which ruffles do you like the better, Sophy?" he asked; and he displayed one after the other before her eyes. "Of course I'd like to look my best to-day," he added, shamefacedly.