The dance over, I searched in vain for my hostess.  Every minute I took out my watch and seemed to feel that another tram was just starting off to some unknown destination.  At last I could bear it no longer and, deciding to write a letter of explanation on the morrow, I dashed off.

My instructions from Miss White with regard to the habitat of trams (thrown in by her at the last moment in case the train failed me) were vague.  Five minutes’ walk convinced me that I had completely lost any good that they might ever have been to me.  Instinct and common sense were the only guides left.  I must settle down to some heavy detective work.

The steady rain had washed out any footprints that might have been of assistance, and I was unable to follow up the slot of a tram conductor of which I had discovered traces in Two-hundred-and-fifty-first Street.  In Three-thousand-eight-hundred-and-ninety-seventh Street I lay with my ear to the ground and listened intently, for I seemed to hear the ting-ting of the electric car, but nothing came of it; and in Four-millionth Street I made a new resolution.  I decided to give up looking for trams and to search instead for London—­the London that I knew.

I felt pretty certain that I was still in one of the Home Counties, and I did not seem to remember having crossed the Thames, so that if only I could find a star which pointed to the south I was in a fair way to get home.  I set out to look for a star; with the natural result that, having abandoned all hope of finding a man, I immediately ran into him.

“Now then,” he said good-naturedly.

“Could you tell me the way to—­” I tried to think of some place near my London—­“to Westminster Abbey?”

He looked at me in astonishment.  His feeling seemed to be that I was too late for the Coronation and too early for the morning service.

“Or—­or anywhere,” I said hurriedly.  “Trams, for instance.”

He pointed nervously to the right and disappeared.

Imagine my joy; there were tram-lines, and, better still, a tram approaching.  I tumbled in, gave the conductor a penny, and got a workman’s ticket in exchange.  Ten minutes later we reached the terminus.

I had wondered where we should arrive, whether Gray’s Inn Road or Southampton Row, but didn’t much mind so long as I was again within reach of a cab.  However, as soon as I stepped out of the tram, I knew at once where I was.

“Tell me,” I said to the conductor; “do you now go back again?”

“In ten minutes.  There’s a tram from here every half-hour.”

“When is the last?”

“There’s no last.  Backwards and forwards all night.”

I should have liked to stop and sympathize, but it was getting late.  I walked a hundred yards up the hill and turned to the right....  As I entered the gates I could hear the sound of music.

“Isn’t this our dance?” I said to Miss White, who was taking a breather at the hall door.  “One moment,” I added, and I got out of my coat and umbrella.