Book The Second: Riches Chapter 31 Closed

The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when
the figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the immediate
neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there
were only a few straggling people to notice it; but, ascending from the
river by the crooked ways that led to London Bridge, and passing into
the great main road, it became surrounded by astonishment.

Resolute and wild of look, rapid of foot and yet weak and uncertain,
conspicuously dressed in its black garments and with its hurried
head-covering, gaunt and of an unearthly paleness, it pressed forward,
taking no more heed of the throng than a sleep-walker. More remarkable
by being so removed from the crowd it was among than if it had been
lifted on a pedestal to be seen, the figure attracted all eyes.

Saunterers pricked up their attention to observe it; busy people,
crossing it, slackened their pace and turned their heads; companions
pausing and standing aside, whispered one another to look at this
spectral woman who was coming by; and the sweep of the figure as it
passed seemed to create a vortex, drawing the most idle and most curious
after it.

Made giddy by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring faces
into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being in the air,
and the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by the unexpected
changes in half-remembered objects, and the want of likeness between the
controllable pictures her imagination had often drawn of the life from
which she was secluded and the overwhelming rush of the reality, she
held her way as if she were environed by distracting thoughts, rather
than by external humanity and observation.