But there was only one thing she could do, and that was a thing that would cost her dear. Only by returning to Arlington Street, at once, that moment, and giving information, could she prevent the marriage. Mr. Northey was Tom's guardian; he had the power, and though he had shirked his duty while the thing was in nubibus, he would not dare to stand by when time and place, the house and the hour were pointed out to him. In less than ten minutes she could be with him; in half as many the facts could be made known. Long before the hour elapsed Mr. Northey might be in Clarges Row, or, if he preferred it, at Dr. Keith's chapel, ready to forbid the marriage.
The thing was possible, nay it was easy; and it would withhold Tom from a step which he must repent all his life. But it entailed the one penance from which she was anxious to be saved, the one penalty from which her wounded pride shrank, as the bleeding stump shrinks from the cautery. To execute it she must return to Arlington Street; she must return into her sister's power, to the domination of Mrs. Martha, and the daily endurance, not only of many an ignoble slight, but of coarse jests and gibes and worse insinuations. An hour earlier she had conceived the hope of escaping this, either through Tom's mediation, or by a voluntary retreat to Chalkhill. Now she had to choose this or his ruin.
She did not hesitate. Even in her folly of the previous day, even in her reckless self-abandonment to a silly passion, Sophia had not lacked the qualities that make for sacrifice--courage, generosity, staunchness. Here was room for their display in a better cause, and without a moment's delay, undeterred by the reflection that far from earning Tom's gratitude, she would alienate her only friend, she hurried into the bedroom and donned Lady Betty's laced jacket and Tuscan. With a moan on her own account, a pitiful smile on his, she put them on; and then paused, remembering with horror that she must pass through the streets in that guise. It had done well enough at night, but in the day the misfit was frightful. Not even for Tom could she walk through Berkeley Square and Portugal Street, the figure it made her. She must have a chair.
She opened the door and was overjoyed to find that the landlord was still on the stairs. "Will you please to get me a chair," she said eagerly. "At once, without the loss of a minute."
The man looked at her stupidly, his heavy lower lip dropped and flaccid; his fat, whitish face evinced a sort of consternation. "A chair?" he repeated slowly. "Certainly. But if your ladyship is going any distance, would not a coach be better?"
"No, I am only going as far as Arlington Street," Sophia answered, off her guard for the moment. "Still, a coach will do if you cannot get a chair. I have not a moment to lose."
"To be sure, ma'am, to be sure," he answered, staring at her heavily. "A chair you'll have then?"
"Yes, and at once! At once, you understand."
"If you are in a hurry, maybe there is one below," he said, making as if he would enter the room and look from the windows. "Sometimes there is."
"If there were," she retorted, irritated by his slowness, "I should not have asked you to get one. I suppose you know what a chair is?" she continued. For the man stood looking at her so dully and strangely that she began to think he was a natural.