bound to come. How right she was, and how lucky to be on
the spot when the disaster came!

The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It
was only an hour's journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and
lower the window again and again. She passed through the
South Welwyn Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and entered the
North Welwyn Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the
immense viaduct, whose arches span untroubled meadows and
the dreamy flow of Tewin Water. She skirted the parks of
politicians. At times the Great North Road accompanied her,
more suggestive of infinity than any railway, awakening,
after a nap of a hundred years, to such life as is conferred
by the stench of motor-cars, and to such culture as is
implied by the advertisements of antibilious pills. To
history, to tragedy, to the past, to the future, Mrs. Munt
remained equally indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the
end of her journey, and to rescue poor Helen from this
dreadful mess.

The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the
large villages that are strung so frequently along the North
Road, and that owe their size to the traffic of coaching and
pre-coaching days. Being near London, it had not shared in
the rural decay, and its long High Street had budded out
right and left into residential estates. For about a mile a
series of tiled and slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt's
inattentive eyes, a series broken at one point by six Danish
tumuli that stood shoulder to shoulder along the highroad,
tombs of soldiers. Beyond these tumuli habitations