The servant went on her way, and Nell turned into her bedroom. What a luxurious room it was. The furniture was upholstered in soft shades of grey and pink, and the walls were hung with engravings, all chosen by the earl himself. There was a spring couch by the fireplace before which was spread a thick white fur rug. The toilet-table was strewn with toys of china and glass and silver. It was the room of a lady, but it was Nell’s no longer. She walked deliberately to the toilet-table, and, opening her trinket case, examined its contents, to see if everything she had received at her lover’s hands was in its place. Then she quietly took off her dainty little watch, encrusted with diamonds, and her bangle bracelets, and two or three handsome rings which he had given her, amongst which was a wedding-ring which she usually wore. She put them all carefully in the trinket-case, and scribbling on the outside of an old envelope, in pencil, the words, ‘Good-bye, my only love, I cannot live without you,’ she placed it with the jewellery, and, locking the box, threw the key out of the window. ‘That will prevent the servants opening it,’ she thought. ‘They will be afraid to force the lock, but _he_ will, by-and-by, and then he will guess the truth. I do not rob him much by taking this gown,’ she said, smiling mournfully, as she gazed at her simple print frock, ‘and he would not mind if I did. He was always generous, to me and everybody.’ Then, overburdened by a sudden rush of memory, she sank on her knees by the couch crying, ‘Oh my love, my love! why did you leave me? It is so very, very hard to part with you thus.’ But when her little outburst was over, Nell dried her eyes, and crept softly downstairs. It was dark by this time; the servants were making merry over their supper in the hall; and the crowds, not having yet issued from the theatres, the streets were comparatively free. Nell walked straight but steadily through Piccadilly and the Strand till she came to Waterloo Street. She was dressed so quietly and walking so deliberately that a stranger might have thought she was going to see a friend; certainly no one would have dreamt of the fire of passion that was raging in her breast. No one looked round at her--not an official of the law asked her business, or followed in her track. She even turned to cross Waterloo Bridge without exciting any suspicion in the bystanders. Why should she not be a peaceful citizen like the rest of them, bent on a common errand? Had it been later at night, it might have been different. It was the early hour of ten, and the crowded pathway that lulled all suspicion. Yet Nell was as distraught as any lunatic who ever contemplated suicide. She was walking to her death, and it was only a proof of the state of her mind that she went without a thought excepting that the rest of forgetfulness was so near. As she came to the centre of the bridge, she stopped for a moment and looked over the coping wall at the calm water.