ere all in the dusk of the side-street; a large draper's with
shirts and collars and grinning wax boys in sailor suits caught with
its front windows the Strand lamps. It was beside the shop that Maggie
stood for an instant hesitating. She could see no pillar-box; she could
see nothing save the streams of human beings, slipping like water
between the banks of houses.

She hesitated, clinging to the draper's shop; then, suddenly catching
sight of the pillar-box a few yards down the street, she let herself
go, had a momentary sensation of swimming in a sea desperately crowded
with other bodies, fought against the fierce gaze of lights that beat
straight upon her eyes, found the box, slipped in the letter, and then,
almost at once, was back in her quiet quarters again.

She turned and, her heart beating, hurried home. The house door was
still ajar. She pushed it back, slipped inside, caught her breath and
listened. Then she closed the door softly behind her, and with that
little act of attempted secrecy realised that she was now a rebel, that
things could never be, for her, the same again as they had been a
quarter of an hour ago. That glittering crowd, the lamps, the smells,
the sounds, had concentrated themselves into a little fiery charm that
held her heart within a flaming circle. She felt the most audacious
creature in the world--and also the most ignorant. Not helpless--no,
never helpless--but so ignorant that all her life that had seemed to
her, a quarter of an hour ago, so tensely crowded with events and
crises was now empty and barren like the old straw-smelling cab at
home. She did not want to offend her aunts and hurt their feelings, but
she was a living, breathing, independent creature and she must go her
own way. Neither they nor their chapel should stop her--no, not the
chapel nor any one in it.

She was standing, motionless, in the dark cold hall, wondering whether
any one had heard her enter, when she was suddenly conscious of two
eyes that watched her--two steady fiery eyes suspended as it seemed in
mid air. She realised that it was the cat. The cat hated her and she
hated it. She had not realised that before, but now with the
illumination of the lighted street behind her she realised it. The cat
was the spirit of the chapel watching her, spying upon her to see that
she did not escape. The cat knew that she had posted her letter and to
whom she had posted it. She advanced to the bottom of the stair and
s