It was an odd sensation to be derelict in a crowd without one familiar association. Everybody seemed to have a friend to meet, and I pictured the sort of homes that they were going to. I had never troubled about this before when I arrived at a terminus, I was always too engrossed with my own personal affairs. But when the crowd cleared off and I found myself left solitary on the platform, the first stirring of that loneliness I was later on to fathom to the full, made itself felt in me. It was one of the bitterest nights of a very cold winter, and the wind cut the skin like the lash of a whip. I pulled myself together and went right up to a policeman.

I have always admired the London police, but I never realised before that they were so tall. I was very conscious of my destitute condition, and I looked up at him wistfully, and a little afraid.

“I haven’t any money,” I said, “and I want a bed for the night. Can you tell me where to go?”

He looked down at me, mildly interested, taking in the brown paper parcel that I carried containing a nightdress, brush and comb and other toilet necessaries.