Forecasts had not hitherto troubled
her; the present was so rich in satisfactions that she could follow
the bent of her nature and live with no anxiety concerning the
unknown. It was a great relief to her to be assured that the
long-standing plans for the holiday would suffer no change. The last
week was a time of impatience, resolutely suppressed. On the
Saturday afternoon Sidney was to meet them at Liverpool Street.
Would anything happen these last few days--this last day--this
last hour? No; all three stood together on the platform, and their
holiday had already begun.
Over the pest-stricken regions of East London, sweltering in
sunshine which served only to reveal the intimacies of abomination;
across miles of a city of the damned, such as thought never
conceived before this age of ours; above streets swarming with a
nameless populace, cruelly exposed by the unwonted light of heaven;
stopping at stations which it crushes the heart to think should be
the destination of any mortal; the train made its way at length
beyond the outmost limits of dread, and entered upon a land of level
meadows, of hedges and trees, of crops and cattle.
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