The languid stillness of the garden after the noise and stir of the streets tempted me to stay longer than I had intended, and when I resumed my journey I thought the rest must have done me good, but before I reached the Holborn Viaduct fatigue was beginning to gain on me.
I saw that I must be approaching some great hospital, for hospital nurses were now passing me constantly, and one of them, who was going my way, stepped up and asked me to allow her to carry baby. She looked so sweet and motherly that I let her do so, and as we walked along we talked.
She asked me if I was going far, and I said no, only to the other end of London, the edge of the country, to Ilford.
"Ilford!" she cried. "Why, that's miles and miles away. You'll have to 'bus it to Aldgate, then change for Bow, and then tram it through Stratford Market."
I told her I preferred to walk, being such a good walker, and she gave me a searching look, but said no more on that subject.
Then she asked me how old baby was and whether I was nursing her myself, and I answered that baby was six weeks and I had been forced to wean her, being supposed to be delicate, and besides . . .
"Ah, perhaps you are putting her out to nurse," she said, and I answered yes, and that was the reason I was going to Ilford.
"I see," she said, with another searching look, and then it flashed upon me that she had formed her own conclusions about what had befallen me.
When we came to a great building in a side street on the left, with ambulance vans passing in and out of a wide gateway, she said she was sorry she could not carry baby any further, because she was due in the hospital, where the house-doctor would be waiting for her.
"But I hope baby's nurse will be a good one. They're not always that, you know."