I remember that she said something else—­it was about Sister Mildred, but my mind did not take it in—­and at the next moment she left me, and I heard her laughter once more as she swept round the corner.

I hardly know what happened next, for here comes one of the blank places in my memory, with nothing to light it except vague thoughts of Martin (and that soulless night in Bloomsbury when the newspapers announced that he was lost), until, wandering aimlessly through streets and streets of people—­such multitudes of people, no end of people—­I found myself back at Charing Cross.

The waiting crowd was now larger and more excited than before, and the traffic at both sides of the station was stopped.

“He’s coming!  He’s coming!  Here he is!” the people cried, and then there were deafening shouts and cheers.

I recall the sight of a line of policemen pushing people back (I was myself pushed back); I recall the sight of a big motor-car containing three men and a woman, ploughing its way through; I recall the sight of one of the men raising his cap; of the crowd rushing to shake hands with him; then of the car swinging away, and of the people running after it with a noise like that of the racing of a noisy river.

It is the literal truth that never once did I ask myself what this tumult was about, and that for some time after it was over—­a full hour at least—­I had a sense of walking in my sleep, as if my body were passing through the streets of the West End of London while my soul was somewhere else altogether.

Thus at one moment, as I was going by the National Gallery and thought I caught the sound of Martin’s name, I felt as if I were back in Glen Raa, and it was I myself who had been calling it.

At another moment, when I was standing at the edge of the pavement in Piccadilly Circus, which was ablaze with electric light and thronged with people (for the theatres and music-halls were emptying, men in uniform were running about with whistles, policemen were directing the traffic, and streams of carriages were flowing by), I felt as if I were back in my native island, where I was alone on the dark shore while the sea was smiting me.

Again, after a brusque voice had said, “Move on, please,” I followed the current of pedestrians down Piccadilly—­it must have been Piccadilly—­and saw lines of “public women,” chiefly French and Belgian, sauntering along, and heard men throwing light words to them as they went by, I was thinking of the bleating sheep and the barking dog.

And again, when I was passing a men’s club and the place where I had met Angela, my dazed mind was harking back to Ilford (with a frightened sense of the length of time since I had been there—­“Good heavens, it must be five hours at least!"), and wondering if Mrs. Oliver was giving baby her drops of brandy and her spoonfuls of diluted milk.

But somewhere about midnight my soul seemed to take full possession of my body, and I saw things clearly and sharply as I turned out of Oxford Street into Regent Street.