Alighting at the tiny station of Thatch Lane, she was immediately lapped around with a cool bath of air, refreshing as water after the dust and turmoil of a day in London. She walked quickly along the tree-lined road; each house a sleeping mystery divided from the next by a dimness of hedge and garden. Occasionally a light-pricked window; footfall of an invisible passer-by; long echoing shriek from the railway line, as the train in a rushing curve was seen cleaving the fields.
Peter halted beneath a solitary lamp-post, swung open a white gate on her left, passed up the neat gravel path of Bloemfontein, and, bringing forth her latchkey, was just about to let herself in, when she became aware of a blurred bundle, somewhat darker than the darkness, squatting on the steps.
“Hullo!”
“Hullo!” responded the bundle forlornly.
“Have you lost your way?”
“N-no, but there’s nobody to open to us.”
Peter had not looked upon the huddled form in the light of an evening caller: “I’m sorry, I thought you were a beggar—No, I don’t mean that—but it’s awfully dark, isn’t it?” with a quick attempt to retrieve her blunder. “But who are you?”
“Oh, please, I’m Chavvy!”
Came a heavy step upon the gravel. A looming figure returned from what had evidently been a tour of exploration round the back premises: