to return it,
and all her labour lost! A panic took possession of her as she sat there
at the foot of Ursula's bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of
trying to think? The more you have need of them, the more all mental
processes fail you. Phoebe could no more think than she could fly. She
sat down very seriously, and she rose up in despair, and, thought being
no longer among her possibilities, resolved to do something at once,
without further delay, which would be a consolation to herself at least.
How wonderful it was to go out in the fresh early morning, and see the
people moving about their work, going up and down with indifferent
faces, quite unconcerned about the day and all it might bring forth! She
went up Grange Lane with a curious uncertainty as to what she should do
next, feeling her own extraordinary independence more than anything
else. Phoebe felt like a man who has been out all night, who has his own
future all in his hands, nobody having any right to explanation or
information about what he may choose to do, or to expect from him
anything beyond what he himself may please to give. Very few people are
in this absolutely free position, but this was how Phoebe represented it
to herself, having, like all other girls, unbounded belief in the
independence and freedom possessed by men. Many times in her life she
had regarded with envy this independence, which, with a sigh, she had
felt to be impossible. But now that she had it, Phoebe did not like it.
What she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one, and
told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders! But she
durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and pre-occupied, she went
up Grange Lane. Home? She did not know; perhaps she would have thought
of something before she reached the gate of No. 6. And accordingly, when
she had lifted her hand to ring the bell, and made a step aside to
enter, an inspiration came to Phoebe. She turned away from the door and
went on up into the town, cautiously drawing her veil over her face, for
already the apprentices were taking down the shutters from her uncle's
shop, and she might be seen. Cotsdean's shop was late of opening that
morning, and its master was very restless and unhappy. He had heard
nothing more about the bill, but a conviction of something wrong had
crept into his mind. It was an altogether different sensation from the
anxiety he had hitherto felt. This was no anxiety