Chapter XXII · THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

One more brief glance at home, ere we find ourselves face to face with the disgusts of Varna, and the hostile columns of Russia.

Many, many weeks had passed away; and during these, Mary Lennox knew nothing of what was passing in the outer world. She knew that busy world was there, beyond her prison—"the huge lock which shut her out from it," for during the monotonous hours of the day, and the drearier watches of the night between her intervals of sleep, she heard the hum of the vast multitudes around her—a hum that, though less at midnight than at noon, seemed never to become, even for an instant, still.

She was weary—weary indeed of life; but felt too strong to hope that death was near her. In the morning she longed for night; and when night came she thanked God that another day of her dull pilgrimage had passed into eternity; and then she prayed for the oblivion of that sleep "which covereth a man all over like a mantle:" but sleep was not always forgetfulness, for sad dreams of the past and vague terrors for the future haunted her, till, one memorable evening, the chaplain and an official of the prison appeared with the startling tidings that she "was free!"

"Free, sir! How?" she asked, doubtfully.

"By the death in prison of the man against whom you were bound to appear. It is fortunate for you," added the chaplain, "as he confessed your perfect innocence."

"Poor wretch! I hope he made his peace with Heaven?"

"Can't say as he did, Miss. You see he died in a hurry," replied the warder.

And so it proved to be the case, that the miserable desperado, Ben Ginger, otherwise known to the public as "the Captain," was soon after found dead in his cell; whether of atrophy of the heart or by some secret agency of his own, the learned coroner and intelligent jury, who viewed or sat over his remains, failed to elicit; but Mary was free.

"You may leave this, Miss Lennox, as soon as you choose," said the chaplain, with a smile of encouragement; "for you the gates of the prison are open at last, and the days of your bondage are over, I am happy to say."

Intolerable as the prison had been to her, she was not without fear of issuing forth once more into the vast human wilderness around it; yet she knew that the essay must be made, come what might of it, and like one in a dream, she put on her hat and shawl. Her garments were sorely worn now, and from black had turned to a kind of rusty-brown tint. Her purse was restored to her, and walking mechanically, she found herself at the strong iron-barred gates. The chaplain still accompanied her; but with that mistaken acuteness peculiar to some people, both he and the matron had their doubts of Mary; and the diamond ring on her "engaged finger" completed the measure of these.

"Where are you going to-night?" he asked, drily.

"As God may direct me. Would that it were to my father's grave at home," said she, as with trembling hands she tied her worn veil under her chin.

Those little hands were gloveless now, so their extreme whiteness and delicacy caught the observant chaplain's eye.

"Home; it is ever home you pine for," said he, kindly, but reprovingly; "why are you for ever looking back?"

"Because, sir, I dare not look forward," replied Mary, with a morose gloom of manner all unusual to her.

"Are you then as one who has no hope?" he asked, with folded hands.

"Yes, sir; one who has no hope here, at least," and her smooth white eyelids and long dark lashes drooped as she spoke.

A trite text or two suited to the occasion—a word of conventional advice were given, the wicket clanged behind her, and they had parted; he to repair to his snug little room, with its comforts and well-filled bookshelves, and Mary to wander through the streets, aimlessly, and in a tumult of terrible thoughts.

It was the month of September now, and darkness soon set in amid the dense and smoky thoroughfares of London.

The girl was in utter desperation and bewilderment, and walked on through the ceaseless throng and past the brilliantly-lighted shops, with the old stunned sensation that the whirl of omnibusses and other vehicles will always impart to those who are, as she was, country bred; it came over her, all the more, perhaps, because latterly she had been secluded so long in utter solitude.

Within her heart there was a sense of desolation that was fast becoming unendurable!

She had vague ideas of once more seeking the abode and advice of kind little Mrs. Long Primer, as the only being she knew in London; and with this view inquired her way towards the Strand; but was fast becoming weary, footsore, and in her agitation, oppressed with an intense thirst, which she knew not where to allay.

Alone, she feared to trust herself by night in a cab, and whither, or in what direction, those strings of gay, swift, and crowded omnibuses went she knew not. The Bank, Pimlico, Piccadilly or Paddington, Cornhill or Islington, conveyed no meaning to her; and so she wandered on, enduring a horrible sensation of combined loneliness, emptiness, and gloom, finding herself at times in densely crowded thoroughfares, and at others in stately streets and squares, where the lights and music that came through the tall and draperied windows, the glimpses of rich dresses, of liveries in marble and pillared vestibules; and where the carriages that rolled up to the doors with flashing lamps and glittering harness, bespoke wealth and luxury, gaiety and splendour.

Lady Wetherall might be in town now; but dared she present herself at that great mansion in Piccadilly in such faded attire, and without her letter, too? The thing was not to be thought of!

And it had come to this at last!

"Homeless, near a thousand homes she stood."

Mary Lennox, so delicate and tender—so loving and true—so formed and calculated for home and home affections! What a fate to be houseless and shivering in the busy streets of London, where the vast human tide went surging by, ceaselessly—ceaselessly, as it has done for centuries past, and shall do for centuries yet to come; its very magnitude appalling her; though she knew that under happier auspices, and with some protection, she would get used to it in time; but at present she felt only a desperate longing for rest, for the face of a friend—a yearning for the safe solitude of that home she never more should see; and she recalled now with vivid distinctness all the terrible things said to her by Chesters, so cruelly and so artfully, of what her fate in life, and even after death, might be, if she died there friendless and unknown.

It was night in London now, but the pulses of the mighty city were throbbing still. In some streets the roll of carriages and the echo of hurrying feet had passed away; but in the main arteries of the modern Babylon the full flood of life was flowing strongly as ever. Night or day seemed to make little difference in them.

Thus as Mary wandered aimlessly on, the strange combinations of extreme light and dense darkness, with the peculiar aspect that buildings and certain objects assume by night, all served to bewilder her more, and she remembered with growing terror the episodes of the last and only night she had ever been thus adrift in the streets at such an hour before.

To add to her extreme misery, rain began to fall, and came down with a heavy, steady, and apparently ceaseless determination. She was without cloak or umbrella, and was often compelled to take shelter in doorways and chilly passages, from which she was driven by men accosting her in terms of mock gallantry, or by policemen flashing their lanterns suspiciously into her eyes; for she had a most rustic fear of those to whom she ought to have appealed for advice and protection.

But all the little courage she ever possessed was gone now, and the poor girl, bred and reared as she had been, was as a child lost or astray in the streets of London.

The rain was still falling fast, and gusts of wind began to sweep the drenched thoroughfares and to ripple up the puddles and gorged gutters that reflected the gaslights. The atmosphere became murky as the smoke and soot of the countless chimneys were forced downwards by its density. Mary's clothing was wet and sodden now; but in the terror and disorder of her mind, she was scarcely sensible of discomfort, for a man of suspicious aspect had been pertinaciously following her, and to escape him she ran onward till suddenly she found herself in an open space upon a great bridge, the double lamps of which were reflected in the wide river below.

It was the Thames, with all its bordering streets of stores and wharves, and its gathered fleets moored side by side, packed and densely, and yet so orderly.

Thousands of lights were gleaming across the murky bosom of the river, and through the open balustrade Mary looked at its current wistfully, thinking, as so many have thought, while lingering on that bridge of sighs, that there was peace—there an escape from all misery and sorrow.

She looked round her with a haggard eye: in one place rose a square dark mass from out of the general obscurity; in another a vast dark shadowy dome, that seemed to shimmer amid the dusky haze. One was the Tower, the other St. Paul's; and once more, sighing heavily, she bent her gaze on the turbid water.

It flowed steadily, swiftly, and darkly onward, that mighty river—onward to the distant sea—but far down below her. Strange white things seemed to shine there in a lambent or phosphorescent light amid its rippling current. These objects made her shudder for a time and recoil. Then she looked at them steadily—it might be sternly. They were, she knew, only pieces of rag or rope, old hats, sailcloth, straw, or dead animals—and—"to be found drowned," amid all these!

"Oh, no—oh, no! God forgive me and guide me!" cried the girl, wildly. "Let me not think of that."

She cast her eyes upwards as she prayed; but no star caught her imploring eyes, and the fast falling rain plashed heavily on her pallid face and sodden tresses.

She remembered her father as he lay dead in the old wainscoted room at Lonewoodlee, calm, peaceful, and triumphant over the world and all its ills. But his was a death so different from what such as this would be.

"Now then, young 'ooman, wot air you hup to?" said a voice, sharply, in her ear, startling her like a galvanic shock; and a well-whiskered guardian of the night, in his felt helmet and dripping oilskin cape, confronted her.

"I am doing nothing, sir," she faltered, and shrunk from him.

"Nothink! Then you'd better come along with me. Prison, I think, is the place for such as you."

"Prison!"

She uttered a wild despairing cry, and throwing herself over the balustrade, sank beneath the still, black current of the stream below!

The startled constable looked over, and as he sprang his rattle, saw something like a little hat and veil floating downward on the surface, but nothing more.

All seemed over!