now was all but deserted. The bare trees on the further side of
the road accentuated the desolation of the thoroughfare. She turned to
the left and pressed on, fighting valiantly against the persistent
spirit of loneliness which seemed to dog her footsteps. Men and girls
hurried by to keep appointments with friends or lovers. Buses jogged
past her, loaded with people who all had somewhere to go, and probably
someone who looked for their coming. She was friendless and alone. Ever
since her interview with Perigal she had realised how everything she
valued in life, if not life itself, depended on her implicit faith in
him. He had told her that there could be no love without trust; she had
believed in this assertion as if it had been another revelation, and it
had enabled her to go through the past week with hardly a pang of
regret (always excepting her parting from Jill) at breaking with all
the associations that had grown about her life during her happy stay at
Melkbridge.

Now doubts assailed her mind. She knew that if she surrendered to them
it meant giving way to despair; she thought of any and all of Perigal's
words which she could honestly construe into a resolve on his part to
marry her before her child was born. As she thus struggled against her
unquiet thoughts, two men (at intervals of a few minutes) followed and
attempted to speak to her. Their unwelcome attentions increased her
uneasiness of mind; they seemed to tell her of the dubious ways by
which men sought to entangle in their toils those of her own sex who
were pleasing to the eye: just now, she lumped all men together, and
would not admit that there was any difference between them. Arrived in
the neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, she was sure of her ground. She
was reminded of her wanderings of evenings from "Dawes'," when, if not
exploring Soho, she had often walked in this direction. Memories of
those long-forgotten days, which now seemed so remote, assailed her at
every step. Then she had believed herself to be unhappy. Now she would
have given many years of her life to be able to change her present
condition (including her trust in Perigal) to be as she was before she
had met him. Directly she crossed Edgware Road, the pavement became
more crowded. Shop-girls (the type of young woman she knew well) and
hobbledehoyish youths, the latter clad in "reach-me-down" frockcoat
suits, high collars, and small, ready-made bow ties, thronged about
her. She could