After this encounter I must, of course,
ascend to the top story, ring the bell of a suite of apartments,
inquire for Mr. Vavasour, learn (with no great surprise) that he
did not live there, come down again and, again politely saluting
the man from Bow Street, make my escape at last into the street.
I was now driven back upon the Assembly Ball. Robbie had failed
me. The bank was watched; it would never do to risk Rowley in that
neighbourhood. All I could do was to wait until the morrow
evening, and present myself at the Assembly, let it end as it
might. But I must say I came to this decision with a good deal of
genuine fright; and here I came for the first time to one of those
places where my courage stuck. I do not mean that my courage
boggled and made a bit of a bother over it, as it did over the
escape from the Castle; I mean, stuck, like a stopped watch or a
dead man. Certainly I would go to the ball; certainly I must see
this morning about my clothes. That was all decided. But the most
of the shops were on the other side of the valley, in the Old Town;
and it was now my strange discovery that I was physically unable to
cross the North Bridge! It was as though a precipice had stood
between us, or the deep sea had intervened. Nearer to the Castle
my legs refused to bear me.
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