Mrs. Northey was no novice. She knew something of intrigue, something of her sex. Her first step was to discharge Sophia's woman, a village maid, who had come with her young mistress from the country. The key of the offender's chamber was then intrusted to madam's own woman, Mrs. Martha, a sour spinster, matured not by years only, but by an unfortunate experience of the other sex, which secured her from the danger of erring on the side of leniency where they were concerned. Mr. Northey could not immediately leave London, therefore it was necessary that arrangements for the culprit's transport to the surer custody of Aunt Leah at Chalkhill should be postponed, but all that Mrs. Northey could do short of this she did. And these dispositions made, she prepared to await events with a mind tolerably at ease.

In every net, however, there are meshes, and small is the mesh through which a large fish cannot escape. It is probable that poor blubbering Dolly, the dismissed maid, innocent as she declared herself, was in somebody's pay, and knew where information could be sold. For before Sophia had been confined to her room for four hours, before the first passionate tears were dried on her cheeks, a clock-maker, who had come in to regulate the tall clock on the stairs, made the odd mistake of mounting, when no one was looking, to the second floor. A moment later a fingernail scraped Sophia's door, a note was thrust under it, and deftly as he had come, the workman, a pale, fat, elderly man, crept down again. He made little noise, for, to save his honour's drugget, he had left his boots in the hall.

Sophia, recovering from a momentary astonishment, pounced on the note, opened it and read it; and, alas for her discretion, her eyes sparkled through her tears as she did so. Thus it ran:--

"Sweetest and Best Beloved of your Sex,--

"The raptures of my heart when my eyes dwell on yours cannot be hidden, and must have convinced you that on you depends the life or death, happiness or misery, of your Hector. If you will, you can plunge me into an abyss of hopelessness, in which I must spend the rest of my existence; or if you will, you can make me in possessing you the happiest, as I am already in aspiring to you the boldest, of mankind. Oh, my Sophia, dare I call you that? Can such bliss be reserved for me? Can it be my lot to spend existence in the worship of those charms, for which the adoration of the longest life passed in thinking of you and serving you were an inadequate price! May I dream that I shall one day be the most enviable of men? If so, there is but one course to be taken. Fly, dearest, fly, your cruel relatives, who have already immured you, and will presently sacrifice you, innocent and spotless, on the vile altar of their ambition. Hold a white handkerchief against your window at six this evening, and the rest is easy. At dusk the day after to-morrow--so much time I need--I will find means to remove you. A few minutes later, Dr. Keith, of Mayfair Chapel, a reverend divine, who will be in waiting at my lodging, will unite you in indissoluble bonds to one whose every thought thenceforth--not given to his King--will be consecrated to the happiness of his Sophia.

"Already my heart beats with rapture; I swoon at the thought. The pen falls from the hand of your humble, adoring lover,

"HECTOR (Count Plomer)."

Need we wonder that Sophia held the letter from her and held it to her, scanned it this way, and scanned it that way, kissed it, and kissed it again; finally, with a glance at the door, hid it jealously within her dress? She would have done these things had she been as much in the dark about Tom, and the machinations formed to rob him, as she had been when she rose that morning. But she would have halted there. She would have pardoned her lover his boldness, perhaps have liked him the better for it; but she would not have granted his prayer. Now, her one aspiration was for the moment when she might take the leap. Her one feeling was impatience for the hour when she might give the signal of surrender. The pillars of her house were shaken; her faith in her sister, in her friends, in her home was gone. Only her lover remained, and if he were not to be trusted she had no one. She did not tell herself that girls had done this thing before, maiden modesty notwithstanding, and had found no cause to repent their confidence; for her determination needed no buttressing. Her cheek flamed, and she thrilled and trembled from head to foot as she pictured the life to which she was flying; but the cheek flamed as hotly when she painted the past and the intolerable craft and coldness of the world on which she turned her back.

The window of her room looked into Arlington Street. She stood at it gazing down on the stand of chairmen and sedans that stretched up to Portugal Street, a thoroughfare now part of Piccadilly. The end of the scaffolding outside Sir Robert Walpole's new house--the house next door--came within a few feet of the sill on which she leaned; the hoarse, beery voices of the workmen, and the clangour of the hammers, were destined to recall that day to her as long as she lived. Yet for the time she was scarcely conscious of the noise, so close was the attention with which she surveyed the street. Below, as on other days, beaux sauntered round the corner of Bennet Street on their way to White's, or stood to speak to a pretty woman in a chair. Country folk paused to look at Sir Bluestring's new house; a lad went up and down crying the Evening Post, and at the corner at the lower end of Arlington Street, then open at the south, a group of boys sat gambling for half-pence.

Sophia saw all this, but she saw no sign of him she sought, though St. James's clock tolled the three quarters after five. Eagerly she looked everywhere, her heart beating quickly. Surely Hawkesworth would be there to see the signal, and to learn his happiness with his own eyes? She leaned forward, then on a sudden she recoiled; Sir Hervey Coke, passing on the other side, had looked up; he knew, then, that she was a prisoner! Her woman's pride rebelled at the thought, and hot with anger she stood awhile in the middle of the room. Whereon St. James's clock struck six; it was the hour appointed. Without hesitation, without the loss of a moment, Sophia sprang to the window, and with a steady hand pressed her handkerchief to the pane. The die was cast.

She thought that on that something would happen; she felt sure that she would see him, would catch his eye, would receive some mark of his gratitude. But she was disappointed; and in a minute or two, after gazing with a bold bashfulness this way and that, she went back into the room, her spirits feeling the reaction. For eight and forty hours from this she had naught to do but wait; for all that time she was doomed to inaction. It seemed scarcely possible that she could wait so long; scarcely possible that she could possess herself in patience. The first hour indeed tried her so sharply that when Mrs. Martha brought her supper she was ready to be humble even to her, for the sake of five minutes' intercourse.

But Mrs. Martha's conversation was as meagre as the meal she brought, and the girl had to pass the night as best she could. Next morning, however, when the woman--after jealously unlocking the door and securing it behind her after a fashion that shook the girl with rage--set down her breakfast, the crabbed old maid was more communicative.

"Thank the Lord, it is a'most the last time I shall have to climb those stairs," she grumbled. "Aye, you may look, miss"--for Sophia was gazing at her resentfully enough--"and think yourself mighty clever! It's little you think of the trouble your fancies give such as me. There!" putting down the tray. "You may take your fill of that and not burst, either. Maybe 'tain't delicate enough for your stomach, but 'twas none of my putting."

Sophia was hungry and the meal was scanty, but pride made her avert her eyes. "Why is it almost the last time?" she asked sharply. "If they think they can break my spirit by starving me----"

"Hoity toity!" the woman said, with more than a smack of insolence. "I'd keep my breath to cool my porridge if I were you! Lord, I wouldn't have your hot temper, miss, for something. But 'twon't help you much with your Aunt Leah, from all I hear. They say she was just such a one as you once, and wilful is no word for her."

Sophia's heart began to beat. "Am I to go to her?" she asked.

"Aye, that you are, and the sooner the better for my legs, miss!"

"When?" Sophia's voice was low.

"To-morrow, no later. The chaise is ordered for six. His honour will take you himself, and I doubt you'll wish you'd brought your pigs to another market before you've been there many days. Leastways, from what I hear. 'Tis no place for a decent Christian, I'm told," the woman continued, spitefully enjoying the dismay which Sophia could not conceal. "Just thatch and hogs and mud to your knees, and never a wheeled thing, John says, in the place, nor a road, nor a mug of beer to be called beer. All poor as rats, and no one better than the other, as how should they be and six miles of a pack-road to the nearest highway? You'll whistle for your lover there, miss."

Sophia swallowed her rage. "Go down!" she said.

p59
"OH, LA! I DON'T WANT TO STAY!" MRS. MARTHA CRIED

"Oh, la! I don't want to stay!" Mrs. Martha cried, tossing her head. "It's not for my own amusement I've stayed so long. And no thanks for my kindness, either! I've my own good dinner downstairs, and the longer I'm here the cooler it'll be. Which some people like their dinner hot and behave themselves accordingly. But I know my duty, and by your leave, miss, I shall do it."

She bounced out of the room with that and turned the key on the outside with a noisy care that hurt the ear if it did not wound the spirit. "Nasty proud-stomached thing!" she muttered as she descended the stairs. "I hope Madam Leah will teach her what's what! And for all she's monstrous high now, I warrant she'll come to eating breast of veal as well as another. And glad to get it. What Sir 'Ervey can see in her passes me, but men and fools are all one, and it takes mighty little to tickle them if it be red and white. For my part I'm glad to be rid of her. One's tantrums is as much as I can put up with, duty or no duty."

Mrs. Martha might have taken the matter more easily had she known what was passing in the locked room she had left. Sophia's indifference was gone; she paced the floor in a fever of uncertainty. How was she to communicate with her lover? How tell him that his plans were forestalled, and that on the morrow, hours before his arrangements were mature, she would be whisked away and buried in the depths of the country, in a spot the most remote from the world? True, at the foot of his letter was the address of his lodging--at Mr. Wollenhope's in Davies Street, near Berkeley Square. And Dolly--though Sophia had never yet stooped to use her--might this evening have got a letter to him. But Dolly was gone; Dolly and all her friends were far away, and Mrs. Martha was stone. Sophia wrung her hands as she walked feverishly from door to window.

She knew nothing of the hundred channels through which a man of the world could trace her. To her eyes the door of Chalkhill bore the legend Dante had made famous. To her mind, to go to Aunt Leah was to be lost to her lover, to be lost to the world. And yet what chance of escape remained? Vainly thinking, vainly groping, she hung at the window tearing a handkerchief to pieces, while her eyes raked the street below for the least sign of him she sought. There were the same beaux strutting round the same corner, hanging on the same arms, bowing to the same chairs, ogled from the shelter of the same fans. The same hackney-coachmen quarrelled, the same boys gambled at the corner. Even Sir Hervey paused at the same hour of the afternoon, looked up as he had looked up yesterday, seemed to hesitate, finally went on. But Hawkesworth--Hawkesworth was nowhere.

Her eyes aching with long watching, the choke of coming tears in her throat, Sophia drew back at last, and was in the act of casting herself on her bed in a paroxysm of despair, when a shrill voice speaking outside her door reached her ears. The next moment she heard her name.

She sprang to the door, the weight lifted from her heart. Any happening was better than none. "Here!" she cried. "Here!" And she struck the panels with her hands.

"Where? Oh, I see," the voice answered. Then "Thank you, my good woman," it went on, "I'll trouble you no farther. I can open for myself. I see the key is in the lock."

But on that Mrs. Martha's voice was raised, loudly remonstrant. "My lady," she cried, "you don't understand! I've the strictest orders----"

"To keep her in? Just so, you foolish thing. And so you shall. But not to keep me out. Still--just to be sure I'll take the key in with me!" On which Sophia heard the key turn sharply in the lock, the door flew open, and in bounced Lady Betty. To insert the key on the inside and secure the door behind her was the work of a moment. Then she dropped the astonished Sophia an exaggerated curtsey.

"La, miss, I crave your pardon, I'm sure," she said, "for calling your name so loud on the stairs, but that silly thing would do nothing but her orders. So as she would not show me the way, I ran up myself."

"You're very kind!" Sophia said. And she stood, trembling, and feeling sudden shame of her position.

Lady Betty seemed to see this. "La! is it true they won't let you out?" she said.

Sophia muttered that it was.

The visitor's eyes roved from the meagre remains of the midday meal to the torn shreds of handkerchief that strewed the floor. "Then it's a shame! It's a black monstrous shame!" she cried, stamping on the floor. "I know what I should do if they did it to me! I should break, I should burn, I should tear! I should tear that old fright's wig off to begin! But I suppose it's your sister?"

"Yes."

Lady Betty made a face. "Horrid thing!" she exclaimed. "I never did like her! Is it because you won't--is it because you have a lover, miss?"

Sophia hesitated. "La, don't mind me. I have five!" the child cried naÏvely. "I'll tell you their names if you like. They are nothing to me, the foolish things, but I should die if I hadn't as many as other girls. To see them glare at one another is the finest sport in the world."

"But you love one of them?" Sophia said shyly.

"La, no, it's for them to love me!" Lady Betty cried, tossing her head. "I should be a fool if I loved them!"

"But the letter--that I tore up?" Sophia ventured.

The child blushed, and with a queer laugh flung herself on the other's neck and kissed her. "That was from a--a lover I ought not to have," she said. "If it had been found, I should have had my ears boxed, and been sent into the country. You saved me, you duck, and I'll never forget it!"

Sophia bent on the most serious imprudence could be wise for another. "From a lover whom you ought not to have?" she said gravely. "You'll not do it again, will you? You'll not receive a second?"

"La, no, I promise you," Lady Betty cried, volubly insistent. "He's--well, he's a nobody, but he writes such dear, darling, charming notes! There, now you know. Oh, yes, it was horrid of me. But I hate him. So that's enough."

"You promise?" Sophia said, almost severely.

"I vow I do," Lady Betty cried, hugging her. "The creature's a wretch. Now tell me, you poor thing, all about him. I've told you my affair."

Here was indeed a blind leader of the blind, but after a little hesitation Sophia told her story. She was too proud to plead the justification her sister's treatment of Tom supplied; nor was there need of this. Even in the bud, Lady Betty found the story beautiful; and when Sophia went on to her lover's letter, and blushing and faltering owned that he had pressed her to elope, the listener could contain herself no longer. "Elope!" she cried, springing up with sparkling eyes. "Oh, the dear bold man! Oh, how I envy you!"

"Envy me?"

"Yes! To be locked in your room and starved--I hope they starve you--and scolded and threatened and perhaps carried into the country. And all the time to be begged and prayed and entreated to elope, and the dear creature wailing and sighing and consuming below. Oh, you lucky, lucky, lucky, girl!" And Lady Betty flung herself on Sophia's neck and embraced her again and again. "You lucky thing! And then perhaps to be forced to escape down a ladder----"

"Escape?" Sophia said, shaking her head piteously. And she explained how far she was from escaping. "By this time to-morrow," she continued, choked by the bitter feelings the thought of to-morrow begot, "I shall be at Chalkhill!"

"No, you will not!" Lady Betty cried, her eyes sparkling. "You will not!" she repeated. "By good luck 'tis between lights. Put on your hoop and sacque. Take my hat and laced jacket. Bend your knees as you go down the stairs, you gawk, and no one will be a bit the wiser."

Sophia stared at her. "What do you mean?" she said.

"Northey's at the House, your sister's at Lady Paget's," the girl explained breathlessly. "There is only the old fright outside, and she's had a taste of my tongue and won't want another. You may walk straight out before they bring candles. I shall wait ten minutes until you are clear, and then, though they'll know it's a bite, they won't dare to stop my ladyship, and--oh, you darling, it will be the purest, purest fun. It will be all over the town to-morrow, and I shall be part of it!"

Sophia shuddered. "Fun?" she said. "Do you call it fun?"

"Why, of course it will be the purest, purest fun!" the other cried. "The prettiest trick that ever was played! You darling, we shall be the talk of the town!" And in the gaiety of her heart, Lady Betty lifted her sacque, and danced two or three steps of a minuet. "We shall--but how you look, miss! You are not going to disappoint me?"

Sophia stood silent. "I am afraid," she muttered.

"Afraid? Afraid of what?"

"I am afraid."

"But you were going to him to-morrow?"

Sophia blushed deeply. "He was coming for me," she murmured.

"Well, and what is the difference?"

The elder girl did not answer, but her cheeks grew hotter and hotter. "There is a difference," she said.

"Then you'll go to Chalkhill!" Lady Betty cried in derision, her voice betraying her chagrin. "La, miss, I vow I thought you'd more spirit! or I would not have troubled you!"

Sophia did not retort; indeed, she did not hear. In her heart was passing a struggle, the issue of which must decide her lot. And she knew this. She was young, but she knew that as her lover showed himself worthy or unworthy of her trust so must her fate be happy or most miserable, if she went to him. And she trembled under the knowledge. Chalkhill, even Chalkhill and Aunt Leah's stinging tongue and meagre commons seemed preferable to a risk so great. But then she thought of Tom, and of the home that had grown cold; of the compensations for home in which others seemed to find pleasure, the flippant existence of drums and routs, the card-table and the masquerade. And in dread, not of Chalkhill, but of a loveless life, in hope, not of her lover, but of love, she wrung her hands. "I don't know!" she cried, the burden of decision forcing the words from her as from one in pain. "I don't know!"

"What?"

"Whether I dare go!"

"Why," Lady Betty asked eagerly, "there is no risk."

"Child! child, you don't understand," poor Sophia wailed. "Oh, what, oh, what am I to do? If I go it is for life. Don't you understand?" she added feverishly. "Cannot you see that? It is for life!"

Lady Betty, startled by the other's passion, could only answer, "But you were going to-morrow, miss? If you were not afraid to go to-morrow----"

"Why to-day?" Sophia asked bitterly. "If I could trust him to-morrow, why not to-day? Because--because--oh, I cannot tell you!" And she covered her face with her hands.

The other saw that she was shaking from head to foot, and reluctantly accepted a situation she only partly understood. "Then you won't go?" she said.

The word "No" trembled on Sophia's lips. But then she saw as in a glass the life to which she condemned herself if she pronounced it; the coldness, the worldliness, the lovelessness, the solitude in a crowd, all depicted, not with the compensating lights and shadows which experience finds in them, but in crude lines such as they wear in a young girl's fancy. In the past was nothing to retain her; in the future her lover beckoned; only maiden modesty and dread of she knew not what withstood a natural impulse. She would and she would not. Painfully she twisted and untwisted her fingers, while Lady Betty waited and looked.

On a sudden in Arlington Street a small-coalman raised his shrill cry; she had heard it a score of times in the last two days; now she felt that she could not bear to hear it again. It was a small thing, but her gorge rose against it. "I will go!" she cried hoarsely. "Give me the clothes."

Lady Betty clapped her hands like a child at play. "You will? Oh, brave!" she cried. "Then there's not a minute to be lost, miss. Take my laced jacket and hat. But stay--you must put on your sacque and hoop. Where are they? Let me help you. And won't you want to take some--la, you'll have nothing but what you stand up in!"

Sophia winced, but pursued her preparations as if she had not heard. In feverish haste she dragged out what she wanted, and in five minutes stood in the middle of the room, arrayed in Lady Betty's jacket and hat, which, notwithstanding the difference in height, gave her such a passing resemblance to the younger girl as might deceive a person in a half light.

"You'll do!" Lady Betty cried; all to her was sport. "And you'll just take my chair: it's a hack, but they know me. Mutter 'home,' and stop 'em where you like--and take another! D'you see?"

The two girls--their united ages barely made up thirty-four--flung themselves into one another's arms. Held thus, the younger felt the wild beating of Sophia's heart, and put her from her and looked at her with a sudden qualm of doubt and fear and perception.

"Oh," she cried, "if he is not good to you! If he--don't! don't!" she continued, trembling herself in every limb. "Let me take off your things. Let me! Don't go!"

But Sophia's mind was now made up. "No," she said firmly; and then, looking into the other's eyes, "Only speak of me kindly, child, if--if they say things."

And before Lady Betty, left standing in the middle of the darkening room--where the reflection of the oil lamps in the street below was beginning to dance and flicker on the ceiling--had found words to answer, Sophia was half-way down the stairs. The staircase was darker than the room, and detection, as Lady Betty had foreseen, was almost impossible. Mrs. Martha, waiting spitefully outside her mistress's door on the first floor landing, saw as she thought, "that little baggage of a ladyship" go down; and she followed her muttering, but with no intention of intercepting her. John in the hall, too, saw her coming, and threw wide the door, then flew to open the waiting chair. "Home, my lady?" he asked obsequiously, and passed the word; finally, when the chair moved off, he looked up and down, and came in slowly, whistling. Another second, and the door of the house in Arlington Street slammed on Sophia.

"And a good riddance!" muttered Mrs. Martha, looking over the balusters. "I never could abear her!"