CHAPTER IV
WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS
I
Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein she lived from mail day to mail day—as one not strong that has a weary mile to cover and walks from seat to seat—and come to her there.
She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe) each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride, whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards the day that brought the letters, round which she lived.
On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and—employed with one such—was wondering if her car would restart before it was reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won. A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to come to rest.
PEER
KILLED IN
FRONTIER
FIGHTING
Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the car really rocking—right up so she could not see the street, right down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and enormous din that threatened to split her brain?
Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did not cease, this immense din silence....