She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from the turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two mining villages.  Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow that road, for she was upon a terrific adventure.  What most frightened her, perhaps, was her own astounding audacity.  She was alarmed by something within herself which seemed to be no part of herself and which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting impressions of unreality.

In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from the showroom—­that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings of the skin in her back.  And she had actually stood on the counter in front of the window in order to see down perpendicularly into the Square; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt Mr. Povey.  She might have gone down into the shop—­there was no slightest reason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of Mr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten the trifling incident of New Year’s Day—­but she was incapable of descending the stairs!  She went to the head of the stairs and peeped through the balustrade—­and she could not get further.  For nearly a hundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her head; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would not move to the meeting; now the moment had arrived for which alone she had lived, and she could not seize it as it passed!  “Why don’t I go downstairs?” she asked herself.  “Am I afraid to meet him?”

The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying wildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that it was impossible he should go without at least asking for her.  Had she not counted the days to this day?  When the customer left Sophia followed her downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting with Constance.  All her self-possession instantly returned to her, and she joined them with a rather mocking smile.  After Mr. Povey’s strange summons had withdrawn Constance from the corner, Mr. Scales’s tone had changed; it had thrilled her.  “You are you,” it had said, “there is you—­and there is the rest of the universe!” Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in his heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own fancies! ...  She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of the screening box and flick it down to her.  She blushed scarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter.  He said nothing, and she could not speak. ...  He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand, on the chance of being able to give it to her!  This thought was exquisite but full of terror.  “I must really go,” he had said, lamely, with emotion in his voice, and he had gone—­like that!  And she put the piece of paper into the pocket of her apron, and hastened away.  She had not even seen, as she turned up the stairs, her mother standing by the till—­that spot which was the conning-tower of the whole shop.  She ran, ran, breathless to the bedroom.