At Reading, where the sidings of the biscuit factory reminded him of teas which he had “brewed” with Widdup, the woman opposite took out a crumpled paper bag, and began to eat sandwiches. She lifted her veil to do so, and the process suddenly proclaimed her human. Edwin saw that she wasn’t, as he had imagined, a sombre, mute-like creature, but a woman of middle age with a comfortable face and a methodical appetite. He began to wonder what he should say if she offered him a sandwich, for he dreaded the idea of accepting anything from a stranger, and at the same time could not deny that he was awfully hungry, for the chocolate creams that he had absorbed at the Downs station had failed to dull his normal appetite. This emergency, however, never arose. The woman in black worked steadily through her meal, and when she had finished her packet of sandwiches folded the paper bag tidily and placed it in a wicker travelling basket, from which she produced one of those flask-shaped bottles in which spirits are sold at railways stations. From this she took a prolonged and delicious gulp; recorked and replaced it, smiled to herself, sighed, and lowered her portcullis once more. It cheered Edwin to think that she wasn’t as inhuman and sinister as he had imagined; and in a little while he saw beneath her veil that she had closed her eyes and was gradually falling asleep. The sun, meanwhile, was climbing towards the south, and the railway carriage began to reflect the summery atmosphere of the green and pleasant land through which the train was passing. It made golden the dust on the window-pane at Edwin’s elbow and discovered warm colours in the pile of the russet cloth with which the carriage was upholstered. It was a country of green woods and fields of ripening mowing-grass from which the sound of a machine could sometimes be heard above the rumble of the train. It all seemed extraordinarily peaceful. A cuckoo passed in level flight from one of the hedgerow elms to the dark edge of a wood. In the heart of the wood itself a straight green clearing appeared. It reminded Edwin of the green roads that pierced the woods below Uffdown, and he remembered, poignantly, the walk with his mother in the Easter holidays when they had reached the crown of the hills at sunset. Some day, they had said, they would make that journey again. Some day . . . perhaps never. Was it quite impossible to get away from that threatening shadow? But even while he was thinking how unreasonable and how cruel the whole business was, another sight fell upon his eyes and filled him with a new and strange excitement: a small cluster of spires set in a city of pale smoke, and one commanding dome. He held his breath. He knew that it was Oxford.