The man in the left luggage office at Euston was good enough to tell her the way to Paddington, but “You can’t carry that,” he said. “Why not?” said Mary Ellen, and carried it. The case was heavy and grew heavier: but there were stretches of her route, the part, for instance, between Tottenham Court Road and Portland Road, which revived her spirit. That might have been a bit of Staithley. London was flat; she had seen no reason in the slight rise of Shaftesbury Avenue to justify Mr. Chown’s qualifying “Not absolutely”; but there were sights and smells along the road to Paddington which she accepted gratefully as evidence of some affinity with Staithley. Piccadilly Circus was not the whole of London; one could breathe here and there, Praed Street way, in cheering shabbiness. She saw a barefoot girl, and a ragged boy offered to carry her bag. There was still a confused echo of the surging West End in her ears and she hadn’t conquered London, but she had received comforting assurance that, in spots, London was habitable. She fortified herself with tea at Paddington, remembered the night journey and bought buns at the counter, remembered the night journey again and slept in a waiting-room, cushioned on her bag, till it was nearly midnight. There was nothing in this precautionary garnering of sleep to prevent her from sleeping in the train, and her through carriage to Torquay was being shunted at Newton Abbot when she awoke and hungrily ate buns. Near Dawlish, she had the first sight in her life of the sea, and all the emotions proper to the child of an island race ought to have besieged her in the gray dawn. “It’s big,” she thought, grudging the sea the character of space, then turned her eyes inland to the cliffs. “They’re small, but they’re better than the sea.” Not Staithley Edge, but elevation of a sort. Mr. Hugh Darley, arriving at the theater at eleven o’clock, was told by the doorkeeper that a young lady was waiting for him. “Been here long?” he asked, looking through Mary Ellen who stood in the passage. “I came on duty when the night-watchman went off at nine. She was here then.” “More fool she,” he said. “Got my letters there?” The doorkeeper had his letters, including one from Mr. Drayton.