The Captain also found that ride to London exhilarating. At least he was no longer hanging about; he was getting to something. He would be able to go back to her—and all his being now yearned to go back to her—with things achieved, with successes to show. He’d found the boy. He would go straight to dear old uncle Chickney, and uncle Chickney would put things right with Moggeridge, the boy would bear his testimony, Moggeridge would be convinced and all would be well again. He might be back with Madeleine that evening. He would go back to her, and she would see the wisdom and energy of all he had done, and she would lift that dear chin of hers and smile that dear smile of hers and hold out her hand to be kissed and the lights and reflections would play on that strong soft neck of hers.... They buzzed along stretches of common and stretches of straight-edged meadowland, by woods and orchards, by pleasant inns and slumbering villages and the gates and lodges of country houses. These latter grew more numerous, and presently they skirted a town, and then more road, more villages and at last signs of a nearness to London, more frequent houses, more frequent inns, hoardings and advertisements, an asphalted sidewalk, lamps, a gasworks, laundries, a stretch of suburban villadom, a suburban railway station, a suburbanized old town, an omnibus, the head of a tramline, a stretch of public common thick with noticeboards, a broad pavement, something-or-other parade, with a row of shops.... London. CHAPTER VIII HOW BEALBY EXPLAINED § 1