She knew that the moment she had passed the corner of the house she was safe from observation. And seeing the front so grim, so slatternly, so uninviting, she paused. Why go on? Why knock? After giving Hornyold time to pass she might slip back to the road without challenging notice.
She would have done this, if her eyes, as she hesitated, had not met those of a grimy, frowsy scarecrow who seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with her from the shelter of the decaying bushes that stood for a garden. She saw herself discovered, and not liking the creature’s looks, she returned to her first plan. She knocked on the half-open door, and receiving no answer, pushed it open and stepped in—as she had stepped into cottages in her own village scores of times.
For an instant the aspect of the interior gave her pause; so bare, with the northern bareness, so squalid with the wretchedness of poverty, was the great dark kitchen. Then, telling herself that it was only the sudden transition from the open air and the wide view that gave a sinister look to the place, she rapped on the table.
Some one moved overhead, crossed the floor slowly, and began to descend the stairs. The door at the foot of the staircase was ajar, and Henrietta waited with her eyes fixed on it. She wondered if the step belonged to the girl whose bold look had so displeased her; or to a man—the tread seemed too heavy for a woman. Then the door was pushed open a few inches only, a foot at most. And out of the grey gloom of the stairway a face looked at her, and eyes met her eyes.
The face was Stewart’s! Walterson’s!
She did not cry out. She stood petrified, silent, staring. And after a whispered oath wrung from him by astonishment, he was mute. He stood, peering at her through the half-open door; the dangerous instinct which bade him spring upon her and secure her curbed for the moment by his ignorance of the conditions. She might have others with her. There might be men within hearing. How came she there? And above all, what cursed folly had led him to show himself? What madness had drawn him forth before he knew who it was, before he had made certain that it was Bess’s summons?
The face was Stewart’s
It was she who broke the spell. She turned, and with no uncertainty or backward glance she went out slowly and softly, like a blind person, passed round the house, and gained the road. Hornyold had gone by and was out of sight; but she did not give a thought to him.