I could not think. At present I could only see--see what? At one
moment a squalid attic, the starlight shining through patched
window-panes upon a lonely mattress, on which a starving girl was
lying; at another moment a cellar damp and dark, in one corner of
which a youthful figure was crouching; and then (most intolerable of
all!) a flaring gin-palace, where, among a noisy crowd, a face was
looking wistfully on, while coarse and vulgar men were clustering
with cruel, wolfish eyes around a beggar-girl. This I saw and
more--a thousand things more.
It was insupportable. I rose and again paced the street.
When I called upon my mother she asked me anxious questions as to
what had ailed me the previous night. Seeing, however, that I
avoided replying to them, she left me after a while in peace.
'Fancy,' said my aunt, who was writing a letter at a little desk
between two windows,--'fancy an Aylwin pulling the check-string, and
then, with ladies in the carriage and the rain pouring--'
During that day how many times I passed in front of the theatre I
cannot say; but at last I thought the very men in the shops must be
observing me. Again, though I half poisoned myself with my drug, I
passed a sleepless night. The next night was passed in almost the
same manner as the previous one.