"We will go for a long walk, K.K., won’t we? And then we will take an omnibus back again. There are always omnibuses in London to take one everywhere.... Some people are so fussy and frumpish, aren’t they?" She was in dull, quiet streets; the effect of the tall houses, wet, ghostlike in the fog, was gloomy, weird. They got on her nerves, set them jarring. A deep depression seized upon her; she ceased trying to fight it. She was too cold, too wretched. She found herself suddenly in a dirty, noisy street, amongst innumerable barrows, innumerable ragged children. Everyone was shouting, it seemed to her; their voices were hideous. Everyone jostled her. She was afraid, horribly afraid. It was all so squalid, so inexpressibly sordid. She shrank back appalled. The noise set her head throbbing and aching. Through the fog she could discern an unending stream of traffic; she could see omnibuses. But to get to one she must slip between two barrows—venture into that muddy road. She hesitated, went on nervously, at a loss. She walked up the Hampstead Road, and came out upon Euston Road, where numberless omnibuses were drawn up. The noise was worse than before. She tried to find out which was her omnibus by listening to the conductors’ raucous voices. She was deafened by the din. "King’s Cross! Baker Street! ’Ammersmith! Victoria!" She approached the nearest conductor, and asked if he went to Henley Road. "What road, miss?" "Henley Road." ’"Enley Road? Where is it, miss?" "It,"—she faltered, at a loss,—"oh," brightening—"it leads out of Gardiner Street!" "Never ’eard of it, miss." "It’s not very far from Horton Square." "Oh, we don’t go anywhere near there." He hopped on to his step and rang the bell. She stood on the curb, looking at the other omnibuses with a weary disinclination to ask again. She held Kate Kearney in her arms, in terror of the traffic. A boy was shouting almost in her ear: "_Star_! Daring burglary by d’ylight! _Star_! Murder in the West End! _Evening News_! Duke of Oldchester run over by a motor! Great Strike in Nottingham! Families starving!..." She turned from him with a sense of physical repulsion. She went forward and accosted another conductor. "That dawg with you, miss? Can’t take a dawg in a ’bus! Not allowed, miss!" He shouted as a consolatory afterthought: "’E can run alongside, you know!" She gave a sudden hysterical little laugh. She glanced at the crowded road, and down at Kate Kearney, cowering in her arms. She moved forward slowly, not knowing which way Henley Road lay. She was tired out; she had never felt so tired and forlorn in all her life. The sea of people, of traffic, the noise, the shouts, bewildered her, dazed her. She moved away hurriedly from the newspaper boys, who seemed, to her shrinking fancy, to be gloating with aggressive noise over endless horrors.