ice. Since 1848 London has grown enormously, and in those
days it was possible, even with such a beast as the one my cabman drove,
to be in the country within half an hour of a West End street. I knew
very little of the environs of the great city, and when I woke up to a
recognition of my surroundings I was in a district altogether strange to
me. There were fields on either hand, and here and there the twinkling
of a distant light proclaimed a probable human habitation; but there
were no lamps about the road as there are nowadays, and the scene looked
altogether deserted and desolate. I pulled down the window, and, putting
out my head, hailed the driver, who was apparently asleep upon his box.
A thin, persistent drizzle was falling, the ill-kept road was wet with
recent rain, and the wretched horse was jogging along at a shuffling
trot at a rate of perhaps four miles an hour.

"Wake up there," I cried, "and get along! I don't want to reach Richmond
after midnight."

"All right," cabby responded, and applied the whip with such effect that
for a hundred yards or so he contrived to get a decent pace out of the
weary brute he drove. By this time I had fallen back once more into the
perplexity of my own thoughts, but in a while I woke to the fact that
we had fallen back to our old pace, and I made a new effort to stimulate
the driver. He in turn made an effort to stimulate his steed, and so we
went on, bumping in the shallow ruts of the road, occasionally standing
still, and at our best scarcely exceeding the pace of a smart walk.

"I suppose," I asked the cabman, "that at least you know where you are
going to?"

"Richmond," replied the driver. "I suppose it's Richmond, in Surrey,
ain't it? There is a Richmond in Yorkshire, but you don't expect a man
to drive there at this time of night?"

"When do you expect to get to the end of your journey at this rate?" I
asked.

"The fact is, sir," said the driver, leaning confidentially backward,
"the 'orse is tired. He's a very good 'orse when he's fresh, but 'e's
been in the shafts for sixteen hours at least, and whether he'll get
there at all is more than I should like to swear to. 'Ows'ever," said
the cabman, "we'll do our best."

Now I was certain that Violet was awaiting my answer to her letter in
some anxiety, and I myself was on fire to see her, so that this dilatory
method of progress made me feel altogether miserable. We went jogging
on in a sad, mournful fashion, and