For days her soul had been rushing toward this moment with
thousand-horsepower speed, like a lonely comet tearing through space.
But then it had been distant, the terrible goal. She had not had to
gasp among her heart-throbs: "Now! It is now!"

Creep as she might, three minutes' brought her from the turning out of
the Strand close to the welcoming entrance where revolving doors of glass
received radiant visions dazzling as moonlight on snow.

"No, I can't!" the girl told herself, desperately. She wheeled more
quickly than the whirling door, hoping that no one would think her mad.
"All the same, I _was_ mad," she admitted, "to fancy I could do it. I
ought to have known I couldn't, when the time came. I'm the last person
to--well, I'm sane again now, anyway!"

A few long steps carried the girl in the sparkling dress and transparent
cloak into the Strand again. But something queer was happening there.
People were shouting and running. A man with a raucous, alcoholic voice,
yelled words Annesley could not catch. A woman gave a squeaking scream
that sounded both ridiculous and dreadful. Breaking glass crashed. A
growl of human anger mingled with the roar of motor-omnibuses, and Miss
Grayle fell back from it as from a slammed door in a high wall.

As she stood hesitating what to do and wondering if there were a fire or
a murder, two women, laughing hysterically, rushed past into the hotel
court.

"Hurry up," panted one of them. "They'll think we belong to the gang.
Let's go into the hotel and stay until it's over."