"What address, miss?" asked the cabman.
"Cedars House, Harringay Park Road."
The cabman paused in intense thought, and after a few seconds responded cheerfully: "Yes, miss."
The porter touched his cap for threepence. The lashed horse plunged forward. Hilda leaned back in the creaking and depraved vehicle, and sighed, "So this is their London!"
She found herself travelling in the direction from which she had come, parallel to the railway, down the longest street that she had ever seen. On her left were ten thousand small new houses, all alike. On her right were broken patches of similar houses, interspersed with fragments of green field and views of the arches of the railway; the conception of the horrible patience which had gone to the construction of these endless, endless arches made her feel sick.
The cab turned into another road, and another; and then stopped. She saw the words "Cedars House" on a gateway. She could not open the door of the cab. The cabman opened it.
"Blinds down here, miss!" he said, with appropriate mournfulness.
It seemed a rather large house; and every blind was drawn. Had the incredible occurred, then? Had this disaster befallen just her, of all the young women in the world?
She saw the figure of Sarah Gailey.
"Good afternoon," she called out calmly. "Here I am. Only I'm afraid I haven't got enough to pay the cabman."