With the clearing of the sky, Nancy’s spirit
grew lighter. She went about London, and enjoyed
it after her long seclusion in the little Cornish
town; enjoyed, too, her release from manifold restraints
and perils. Her mental suffering had made the
physical harder to bear; she was now recovering health
of mind and body, and found with surprise that life
had a new savour, independent of the timorous joy
born with her child. Strangely, as it seemed to
her, she grew conscious of a personal freedom not
unlike what she had vainly desired in the days of
petulant girlhood; the sense came only at moments,
but was real and precious; under its influence she
forgot everything abnormal in her situation, and—though
without recognising this significance—knew
the exultation of a woman who has justified her being.
A day or two of roaming at large gave her an appetite
for activity. Satisfied that her child was safe
and well cared for, she turned her eyes upon the life
of the world, and wished to take some part in it —not
the part she had been wont to picture for herself before
reality supplanted dreams. Horace’s example
on the one hand, and that of Jessica Morgan on the
other, helped her to contemn mere social excitement
and the idle vanity which formerly she styled pursuit
of culture. Must there not be discoverable, in
the world to which she had, or could obtain, access,
some honest, strenuous occupation, which would hold
in check her unprofitable thoughts and soothe her
self-respect?
That her fraud, up to and beyond the crucial point,
had escaped detection, must be held so wonderful,
that she felt justified in an assurance of impunity.
The narrowest escape of which she was aware had befallen
only a few weeks ago. On the sixth day after the
birth of the child, there was brought to her lodgings
at Falmouth a note addressed to ‘Miss.
Lord.’ Letters bearing this address had
arrived frequently, and by the people of the house
were supposed to be for Mary Woodruff, who went by
the name of ‘Miss. Lord,’ Nancy having
disguised herself as ‘Mrs. Woodruff;’ but
they had always come by post, and the present missive
must be from some acquaintance actually in the town.
Nancy could not remember the handwriting. Breaking
open the envelope as she lay in bed, she saw with alarm
the signature ‘Luckworth Crewe.’
He was at Falmouth on business, Crewe wrote, and,
before leaving London, he had ventured to ask Miss
Lord’s address from her brother, whom he casually
met somewhere. Would Nancy allow him to see her,
were it but for a minute or two? Earnestly he
besought this favour. He desired nothing more
than to see Miss. Lord, and to speak with her
in the way of an ordinary acquaintance. After
all this time, she had, he felt sure, forgiven his
behaviour at their last meeting. Only five minutes
of conversation—
