"Dear uncle, F. has followed you here on business of the greatest importance. Pray let her see you--she is at the old place."
"It will not do," thought Fleda again,--"there is still less to catch his eye--I cannot trust it. And if I were to put 'Queechy' over it, that would give the clue to the Evelyns and everybody. But I had better risk anything rather than his seeing it--"
The miserable needlessness of the whole thing, the pitiful weighing of sorrow against sorrow, and shame against shame overcame her for a little; and then dashing away the tears she had no time for and locking up the strong box of her heart, she took her pencil again.
"Queechy.
"Let me see you at the old place. I have come here on urgent business for you. Do not deny me, for H---'s sake!"
With a trifle of alteration she thought this would do; and went on to make a number of fair copies of it for so many papers, This was done and all traces of it out of the way before Mrs. Pritchard came in and the breakfast; and after bracing herself with coffee, though the good housekeeper was still sadly dissatisfied with her indifference to some more substantial brace in the shape of chickens and ham, Fleda prepared herself inwardly and outwardly to brave the wind and the newspaper offices, and set forth. It was a bright keen day; she was sorry; she would it had been cloudy. It seemed as if she could not hope to escape some eyes in such an atmosphere.
She went to the library first, and there requested the librarian, whom she knew, to bring her from the reading-room the files of morning and evening papers. They were many more than she had supposed; she had not near advertisements enough. Paper and ink were at hand however, and making carefully her list of the various offices, morning and evening separate, she wrote out a copy of the notice for each of them.
The morning was well on by the time she could leave the library. It was yet far from the fashionable hour, however, and sedulously shunning the recognition of anybody, in hopes that it would be one step towards her escaping theirs, she made her way down the bright thoroughfare as far as the City Hall, and then crossed over the Park and plunged into a region where it was very little likely she would see a face that she knew. She saw nothing else either that she knew; in spite of having studied the map of the city in the library she was forced several times to ask her way, as she visited office after office, of the evening papers first, till she had placed her notice with each one of them. Her courage almost failed her, her heart did quite, after two or three. It was a trial from which her whole nature shrank, to go among the people, to face the eyes, to exchange talk with the lips, that were at home in those purlieus; look at them she did not. Making her slow way through the choked narrow streets, where the mere confusion of business was bewildering,--very, to any one come from Queechy; among crowds, of what mixed and doubtful character, hurrying along and brushing with little ceremony past her; edging by loitering groups that filled the whole sidewalk, or perhaps edging through them, groups whose general type of character was sufficiently plain and unmixed; entering into parley with clerk after clerk who looked at such a visiter as an anomaly,--poor Fleda almost thought so too, and shrank within herself; venturing hardly her eyes beyond her thick veil, and shutting her ears resolutely as far as possible to all the dissonant rough voices that helped to assure her she was where she ought not to be. Sometimes she felt that it was impossible to go on and finish her task; but a thought or two nerved her again to plunge into another untried quarter or make good her entrance to some new office through a host of loungers and waiting news-boys collected round the door. Sometimes in utter discouragement she went on and walked to a distance and came back, in the hope of a better opportunity. It was a long business; and she often had to wait. The end of her list was reached at last, and the paper was thrown away; but she did not draw free breath till she had got to the west side of Broadway again, and turned her back upon them all.
It was late then, and the street was thinned of a part of its gay throng. Completely worn, in body as well as mind, with slow faltering steps, Fleda moved on among those still left; looking upon them with a curious eye as if they and she belonged to different classes of beings; so very far her sobered and saddened spirit seemed to herself from their stir of business and gayety; if they had been a train of lady-flies or black ants Fleda would hardly have felt that she had less in common with them. It was a weary long way up to Bleecker-street, as she was forced to travel it.
The relief was unspeakable to find herself within her uncle's door with the sense that her dreaded duty was done, and well and thoroughly. Now her part was to be still and wait. But with the relief came also a reaction from the strain of the morning. Before her weary feet had well mounted the stairs her heart gave up its control; and she locked herself in her room to yield to a helpless outpouring of tears which she was utterly unable to restrain, though conscious that long time could not pass before she would be called to dinner. Dinner had to wait.