Her excitement rose as the afternoon progressed; and by the evening she was in a fever. When all the other girls were gathering together their work and their out-of-door clothes she joined the general mêlée with something that approached fierceness. It was not that Sally had any need to hurry, for there were two hours ahead of her; but she was on fire to be gone, to take her little parcel to the hotel, to give the clerk there news of her intended absence for the night, and to make a careful toilette before her appointment. The time was too slow for Sally. She was biting her lips with impatience more than an hour before the time agreed upon for the meeting. Her old longing for Toby had come back with extraordinary strength. As the darkness grew she slipped out of the hotel and into the night-sheltered streets. For long she walked rapidly about London, examining each clock she passed until the vagaries of them all so heightened her passion that she could have shrieked at their fresh discrepancies. And at last it was nearly eight o'clock, and she walked round and round the Marble Arch in the tortured light of the ballooned lamps, and round the outer side of the wide road thereabouts. There was as yet no sign of Toby. It wanted two or three minutes to the hour. A rush of traffic made Oxford Street roar as if with fury. It was like the sea, but without gradations of sound. Big red motor-omnibuses thundered along, and cabs flew by. There were occasional electric broughams such as she coveted, which tinkled a bell instead of sounding some one of the ugly horns which added their noise to the general racket. And Toby did not come. A panic seized her. Perhaps her letter after all had been forwarded to him? Perhaps he was not coming? Much as she had dreaded his violence, such a failure now impressed her as even more sinister. She had stopped dead in the violence of this sudden thought, and was for the moment blinded and deafened, when Toby gently took her arm. Sally's first jump of horror was followed by such an abandonment to his arms that she was rendered quite unconscious of the place and the notice of those who passed. Only she recognised that Toby was there, that he was not angry, that he was the same strong lover she had always known, ready and determined, her lover among all men. "Not the pictures. Not the pictures," she pleaded, with tears in her voice. "Come for a walk. Come this way!" She pulled at Toby's arm, and drew him towards the entrance to Hyde Park. Her arm was hugging his, her body pressed against Toby's. Only when they were out of that circle of light did she feel safe, appeased, able to think with any of her old clearness. She had been a frightened child. Now she was an exultantly happy one, given over to the great joy of the moment. ix