Yes, an elopement; but not like a real elopement; always unreal!
She had always known that it was only an imitation of an elopement, and must end in some awful disappointment.
She had never truly wanted to run away; but something within her had pricked her forward in spite of her protests.
The strict notions of her elderly relatives were right after all.
It was she who had been wrong. And it was she who would have to pay.
"I've been a wicked girl," she said to herself grimly, in the midst of her ruin.
She faced the fact.
But she would not repent; at any rate she would never sit on that stool.
She would not exchange the remains of her pride for the means of escape from the worst misery that life could offer.
On that point she knew herself.
And she set to work to repair and renew her pride.
Whatever happened she would not return to the Five Towns.
She could not, because she had stolen money from her Aunt Harriet.
As much as she had thrown back at Gerald, she had filched from her aunt, but in the form of a note.
A prudent, mysterious instinct had moved her to take this precaution.
And she was glad. She would never have been able to dart that sneer at Gerald about money if she had really needed money.
So she rejoiced in her crime; though, since Aunt Harriet would assuredly discover the loss at once, the crime eternally prevented her from going back to her family.
Never, never would she look at her mother with the eyes of a thief!
(In truth Aunt Harriet did discover the loss, and very creditably said naught about it to anybody.
The knowledge of it would have twisted the knife in the maternal heart.)
Sophia was also glad that she had refused to proceed to Paris.
The recollection of her firmness in refusing flattered her vanity as a girl convinced that she could take care of herself.
To go to Paris unmarried would have been an inconceivable madness.
The mere thought of the enormity did outrage to her moral susceptibilities.
No, Gerald had most perfectly mistaken her for another sort of girl; as, for instance, a shop-assistant or a barmaid!
With this the catalogue of her satisfactions ended.
She had no idea at all as to what she ought to do, or could do.
The mere prospect of venturing out of the room intimidated her.
Had Gerald left her trunk in the hall?
Of course he had.
What a question!
But what would happen to her?
London ... London had merely dazed her.
She could do nothing for herself.
She was as helpless as a rabbit in London.
She drew aside the window-curtain and had a glimpse of the river.
It was inevitable that she should think of suicide; for she could not suppose that any girl had ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers.
"I could slip out at night and drown myself," she thought seriously.
"A nice thing that would be for Gerald!"
Then loneliness, like a black midnight, overwhelmed her, swiftly wasting her strength, disintegrating her pride in its horrid flood.
She glanced about for support, as a woman in the open street who feels she is going to faint, and went blindly to the bed, falling on it with the upper part of her body, in an attitude of abandonment. She wept, but without sobbing.
II
Gerald Scales walked about the Strand, staring up at its high narrow houses, crushed one against another as though they had been packed, unsorted, by a packer who thought of nothing but economy of space.
Except by Somerset House, King's College, and one or two theatres and banks, the monotony of mean shops, with several storeys unevenly perched over them, was unbroken, Then Gerald encountered Exeter Hall, and examined its prominent facade with a provincial's eye; for despite his travels he was not very familiar with London.
Exeter Hall naturally took his mind back to his Uncle Boldero, that great and ardent Nonconformist, and his own godly youth.
It was laughable to muse upon what his uncle would say and think, did the old man know that his nephew had run away with a girl, meaning to seduce her in Paris.
It was enormously funny!
However, he had done with all that.
He was well out of it.
She had told him to go, and he had gone.