Janet noted that her mistress's face was pale and her eyes unnaturally bright with want of sleep, but held her tongue, being ever a woman of few words. Together the two dressed the table and set out the cold viands in case the travellers should arrive in time for dinner. The rest of the meal would be sent in at a few minutes' notice from the tavern at the entrance of the court. Having seen to these preparations and paid a visit of inspection to the bedrooms, she set out on her way back to Frith Street just as St. Dunstan's clock was striking eleven. She left, promising Janet to return before nightfall. Night was dusking down upon the narrow court as she entered it again out of the rattle of Fleet Street. She had lost her springy gait, and dragged her legs heavily under the burden of the unborn child and a strain which during the past four or five days had become a physical torture. She came out of her own thoughts with an effort, to wonder if the travellers had arrived. Her eyes went up to the windows of Uncle Matthew's parlour: and, while they rested there, the room within of a sudden grew bright. Janet had entered it with a lamp, and, having set it down, came forward to draw the curtains and close the shutters. At the same moment in the other window an arm went up to the curtain and the slim figure of Patty stood dark against the lamplight. She stood for a moment gazing out upon the court; gazing, as it seemed to Hetty, straight down upon her. Hetty came to a halt, crouching in the dusk against the wall. Now that she knew of their arrival she had no wish to greet either her sister or her uncle: nay, as her own dark shadow overtook her--the thought of the drunkard at home in the lonely house--she knew that she could not climb to that lighted room and kiss and welcome them. As her sister's hand drew the curtain, she turned and sped back down the court. She broke into a run. The pedestrians in the dim streets were as ghosts to her. She ought not to have left him. Heaven alone knew how long this fit would last; but while it lasted her place was beside him. Twice, thrice she came to a dead stop, and panted with one hand at her breast, the other laid flat against a house-wall or the closed shutters of a shop, and so supporting her. Men peered into her face, passed on, but turned their heads to stare back at her, not doubting her a loose woman the worse for drink, but pierced with wonder, if not with pity, at her extraordinary beauty. She heeded them not, but always, as soon as she caught her breath again, ran on. She turned the corner of Frith Street. Heaven knows what she expected to see--the house in a blaze, perhaps: but the dingy thoroughfare lay quiet before her, with a shop here and there casting a feeble light across the paving-stones. The murmur of the streets, and with it all sense of human help within call, fell away and were lost. She must face the horror alone.