As Miss
Chetwynd's pupils left at four o'clock, and as Miss Chetwynd
invariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able to
contain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was
not in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.
She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from
the turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two
mining villages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow
that road, for she was upon a terrific adventure. What most
frightened her, perhaps, was her own astounding audacity. She was
alarmed by something within herself which seemed to be no part of
herself and which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting
impressions of unreality.
In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from the
showroom--that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings of
the skin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter in
front of the window in order to see down perpendicularly into the
Square; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his
luggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when
he went outside to tempt Mr. Povey. She might have gone down into
the shop--there was no slightest reason why she should not; three
months had elapsed since the name of Mr.
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