one of those
disembodied spirits of Mrs. Johns' spirit world, driven through the
solitude of the ages by the implacable decree of some incalculable
malignant force called immortality. She felt as though centuries of time
had rolled over her head when the murk of the lowering sky lightened, and
the London dawn was born, naked and grey.

The dawn brought London to life with a speed which was in the nature of a
miracle. From the appearance of the first workers to the flocking of the
streets, was, as it were, but a moment. The 'buses and trams commenced
running, and shops opened. Sisily found herself walking along Holborn,
where the thickening crowds jostled her as she walked. But she did not
care for that now, nor did she seek the comparative seclusion of the side
streets. Her fear of capture had passed away, and her only feeling was
impenetrable isolation and loneliness. The people who were passing had no
more existence to her than if they had been a troop of ghosts. She had the
sensation of belonging to another world and could not have communicated
with them if she had wished. But the spirit which had sustained her during
the night disappeared with the clamorous advance of the day. She became in
an instant conscious of the grievous pangs of a body which seemed to have
been flung back to her in a damaged state. It ached all over. Her head
throbbed with a dull buzzing sound, and she was so tired that she could
hardly stand. She felt as if she must lie down--in the street, anywhere.
And she was tormented by thirst. But she still kept on.

She found herself, after a while, by one of those little backwaters which
are the salvation of strangers to London: a green railed square, with
trees and fountains, and a quiet pavement where a street artist was
drawing bright pictures with crayons. An old four-wheeler was moored in
the gutter by the entrance, the horse munching in the depths of a
nose-bag, the elderly driver reclining against the side of the cab,
smoking and watching the pavement artist.

Sisily entered the empty square to rest herself. As she sat there on one
of the wooden seats the full misery of her situation came home to her, and
she asked herself anxiously what she was to do. She had nowhere to go, and
no money to buy food or shelter--nothing in the world that she could call
her own except the clothes she was wearing. They were the coat and skirt
she had put on to come to London, and she noticed with feminine concer