It was so dark, nobody could ever see him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy with clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind, straight forward, as if to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was conscious that he was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he had got there. And then, as in a dream, he was in the long street of Beldover, with its street-lamps.

There was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being barred, and of men talking in the night. The ‘Lord Nelson’ had just closed, and the drinkers were going home. He had better ask one of these where she lived — for he did not know the side streets at all.

‘Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?’ he asked of one of the uneven men.