Joey finished the letter in her mind, and said it over to herself. It wouldn't take long to write down, that was one comfort--and she hoped it would make Cousin Greta understand she wasn't quite the ill-mannered girl she had seemed. And as she finished saying it and got it finally off her chest, she knew suddenly that she was very cold, and that a clammy white wall was surrounding her on every side, that beneath her feet was green bogginess, and of the road or any landmark there was not so much as a trace. Joey had heard of the sea-roke in books, but that didn't make her very clear about it now she met it. She couldn't think how such a thick, dead-white fog could have come up without her noticing it; but here it was, that was very certain. She began to wish that she had kept to the high road, or left the composition of that difficult letter till she got back to Redlands. However, the roke was here, and she was on the Deeps and not the road; there was nothing for it but to keep as straight on as possible--or better still, turn to her left and strike the road. Joey settled that would be the wisest thing to do, even if it took her out of her way at first; she turned to the left and went as straight as she could. The road seemed to take a very long time to be reached; Joey couldn't think how she could have come so far from it. She stumbled on and on, finding the ground very quaggy, and walking exceedingly difficult. And then she jumped back only just in time, for she had all but walked into one of those deep ditches with slanting sides that drain the Deeps at intervals, and are a very real danger, with their thick ooze of mud below the water, and their slippery banks. Joey knew that she had crossed no ditch on her way down from the road; she began to feel a little pricking of uneasiness. She was very, very tired; her legs ached, and she seemed to herself to have walked miles and miles through this cold, clammy, white wall. And if she couldn't strike the road; how much farther might she not have to go? And was all this struggling getting her any nearer to Redlands? Joey was not a nervous person, but she sat down at the side of the dyke to try and get her bearings, with rather a sinking heart. She had just remembered that in a fog you tend to wander in a circle; could she have been doing that all this long time when she hoped that she was at least getting on a little? "What a bally nuisance!" she said aloud. Of course one couldn't acknowledge, even to oneself, that it was anything worse than that.