"And I'll get some work without wasting a minute," she thought, nodding her head."In a shop if necessary--or I could be a governess--and then when he is free, Martin will be with me."She climbed on a chair and turned down the hall-gas as she had seen Martha do.She went to the door and slipped the chain into its socket and turned the lock.She listened for a moment before she started upstairs, she saw Mr.Crashaw's eyes in the dark--she heard his voice.
"Punishment! Punishment!..."
She suddenly started to run up the black stairs, stumbled, ran faster through the passage under the picture of the armed men, arrived at last in her room, breathless.
During her undressing she stopped sometimes to listen.Her aunt's bedroom was on the floor below hers, and she certainly could hear nothing through the closed doors, and yet she fancied, as she stood there, that the sound of sobbing came up to her and, twice, a sharp cry.
"I suppose I'm terribly selfish," she thought, "I ought to want to go and help Aunt Anne, and I don't." No, she didn't.She wanted to run away from the house, miles and miles and miles.She climbed into bed and thought of her escape.If Miss Trenchard did not answer her letter, then she could go off to Uncle Mathew, greatly though she disliked the thought of that; then she could live on her three hundred pounds and look about until she found work or Martin came for her.
But so ignorant was she of the world that she did not in the least know how she could get her three hundred pounds.But Uncle Mathew would know.She thought of him standing in the doorway at the hotel, holding up a glass, then she thought of Martin, and so fell asleep.