Giving a wild laugh, the girl ran off. A man inside was looking angrily through the window; so Jane turned from the thoroughfare, and finally struck into the road by which she came. The street lamps had given way to the moon. The flats adjoining the city were all white except marshy spots; passing two tall buildings, that made a sort of gateway, the country spread to the sky unbroken, except where rows of dreary houses, shadowy without the twinkle of a light, stood on some new land; this was not the fashionable road, and it was empty. How pure and cool it was! In the city, there was straggling moonlight, darkened by the brick walls, but no moon; out here, the moon had just broken from a bank of cloud low down, piled on a bank of snow, all looking snowy and alike, the horizon line being hardly distinguishable; the light poured from the edge in a shining flood, and rippled without a sound over the crisp, crusted snow—all of one kin, cold, sparkling, desolate.
Jane noted nothing of this; she walked dizzily along the road. Only one day since morning, after living a whole lifetime in that! She scooped up a handful of snow, and rubbed it furiously into her face and eyes, they burned so; her eyes were dry, melting the snow without feeling wet any. Clear back in the morning, Margery Eames met her; then the day dragged along as if it never would go, and she ate nothing but the tears she swallowed; going down those steps, through that dreadful door, waiting on those tables—the evening, till Will Prescott came in. She had wanted so to have what others had, to study, to paint—such things as she had seen, and she couldn't make a stroke! to learn to sing, as she had heard them sing in the churches; to see Germany, that her mother had told her about; she wanted to be loved—not like father and Nobby, but another way too; she had a right to have such things—other people had them. He had praised her, stroked her hair; said she was too pale, but no matter, she'd brighten up by and by; she was his little bluebell he had found in the woods, that he was going to make over into a red rose; she should have everything she wanted, and go with him everywhere, pretty soon—only be patient; if he could wait, couldn't she? And she had been patient, without telling father about it, though somehow he found out; she had waited in the road an hour more than once for a kind word and a smile as he rode by; she had borne with her hard fare, and waited for him to do the things he promised; and after she had to go into the dance house, she hated it most for his sake—she hated him to kiss her, for fear he'd find some taint on her lips of the place she went to; she thought of him all the while, to keep up courage; of course it was for father and Nobby she did it, but he helped her. It was all over now.
She came to the bridge over the river, and stopped on it. Just then she happened to think of a choral her mother liked to sing: 'A mighty fortress is our God.' A fortress—not hers. Did He sometimes turn against people and crowd them—who crowded the girl at the confectioner's window? Was there any God at all? Not in the city; only two sorts of people were there, who either lived in fine houses, and had no souls at all, or else went about the streets, and had lost them. Was there any God out here? If there was, He wouldn't have let Mr. Cowles turn her father off, and she wouldn't be out in the cold; there wasn't any anywhere.
Jane looked down at the water. It was muddy, but it gave a wavering reflection as the wind ruffled it; now and then a piece of driftwood glided from under the bridge, and was borne along toward the factory dam. Her mind flashed round to the factory, and home, and the Christmas tree for to-morrow, and she laughed bitterly. Jump! She had lost him, all that had been keeping her up so long—he never meant to marry her, though he said so, and she believed him. Everything went with that love; what was there left? What matter what came now? Jump! But father and Nobby? She couldn't leave them unprovided for. Money, money! she must have money, for them.
The bells began to chime very softly, as they always did at twelve o'clock of this night in the year. They seemed to say: 'Come! come! come!' She caught at the sound. There was money in the city, and one way yet to earn it.
'They're calling me!' she cried, clutching her dress wildly with both hands; 'they're pushing me into hell—why shouldn't I go? They'll have money, and I'm gone already.'
She turned, and walked back without faltering, to the edge of the city, and stopped between the two buildings. There was an alley close by, like one she knew so well; by the noise there was revel in it. She hesitated a minute, crouching out of sight in the shadow of the buildings.
'Don't stop here!' she muttered to herself; 'now as well as any other time!' and turned into the alley. The light was streaming from a door near the middle, and a man in sailor's dress came out and caught a glimpse of her creeping along close to the wall.
'Hey, lass!' he said, 'merry Christmas to ye! 'Rived in port to-day. Been a cruisin'. Locker full, an' all hands piped ashore. What craft be you—a Dutch galley? Sail down a bit, till I get within speakin' distance.'
She only staggered closer against the wall.