From all these mingled dreams and visions she woke with a terrible scream.
"If I cannot sleep," she thought to herself, "I shall go mad."
Then everything went black before her eyes, her head fell back, and she knew no more until loud, strange voices shouted "Euston Square."
She was in the great Babylon at last. So young, so lovely, so simple in her child-like innocence; alone, unprotected, unknown in the streets of that great city: having neither home nor friends—having neither brain nor mind clear—what was to save her? She left the carriage and sat for some time on one of the seats on the platform; the same heaviness, the same strange mixture of past and present confused her.
"I must sleep," she said to herself—"I must sleep or I shall go mad." She rose and walked out of the station. What a labyrinth of streets, squares, and houses! Where could she find rest? Suddenly across the bewildered mind came one clear thought.
"I have money, and I must take lodgings—I can pay for them; and, in a room of my own, I can sleep until my brain is clear."
She walked slowly down one street, and up another, but saw no announcement of "Lodgings to Let." Then she fancied all the houses were reeling, and the sky closing in upon her. The next moment they were steady again, and she was standing, looking wildly around. Again she walked on a little farther, and then became sick, faint and giddy.
"This is something more than the want of sleep," she said to herself. "I am ill. I cannot walk—I cannot stand. Everything is reeling around me."
Suddenly her eyes fell on a brass plate on the door of a house quite near—"Dr. Chalmers."