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for some relief: a lighted taxi, a full moon or a helpful policeman. After a moment her wish was granted: a car came creeping along, its faint side lights like the eyes of a cat in the heavy gloom, and suddenly she could see the line of the curb all the way to the street comer.
    She began to walk.
    The car passed on, its red rear lights receding into the dark distance. Margaret thought she was still three or four steps from the comer when she stumbled down the curb. She crossed the road and found the opposite pavement without falling over it. That encouraged her and she walked on more confidently.
    Suddenly something hard smacked into her face with agonizing violence.
    She cried out in pain and sudden fear. For a moment she was in a blind panic and wanted to turn and run. With an effort she calmed herself. Her hand went to her cheek and rubbed where it hurt. What on earth had happened? What was there to hit her at face level in the middle of the pavement? She reached out with both hands. She felt something almost immediately, and jerked her hands back fearfully; then she gritted her teeth and reached out again. She was touching something cold and hard and round, like an oversized pie dish floating in midair. Exploring it further, she felt a round column with a rectangular hole and an outjutting top. When she realized what it was she laughed despite her sore face. She had been attacked by a pillar box.
    She felt her way around it, then walked on with both arms stretched out in front of her.
    After a while she stumbled down another curb. Regaining her balance, she felt relieved: she had reached Aunt Martha’s street. She turned left.
    It occurred to her that Aunt Martha might not hear the doorbell. She lived alone: there was no one else to answer. If that happened, Margaret would have to make her way back to Catherine’s building and sleep in the corridor. She could cope with sleeping on the floor, but she dreaded another walk through the blackout. Perhaps she would simply curl up on Aunt Martha’s doorstep and wait for daylight.
    Aunt Martha’s small house was at the far end of a long block. Margaret walked slowly. The city was dark but not silent. She could hear the occasional car in the distance. Dogs barked as she passed their doors and a pair of cats howled, oblivious of her. Once she heard the tinkling music of a late party. A little farther on she picked up the muffled shouts of a domestic row behind the blackout curtains. She found herself longing to be inside a house with lamps and a fireplace and a teapot.
    The block seemed longer than Margaret remembered. However, she could not possibly have gone wrong: she had turned left at the second cross street. Nevertheless, the suspicion that she was lost grew relentlessly. Her sense of time failed her: had she been walking along this block for five minutes, twenty minutes, two hours or all night? Suddenly she was not even sure whether there were any houses nearby. She could be in the middle of Hyde Park, having wandered through the entrance by blind luck. She began to feel that there were creatures all around her in the darkness, watching her with catlike night vision, waiting for her to stumble into them so they could grab her. A scream started low in her throat and she pushed it back.
    She made herself think. Where could she have gone wrong? She knew there was a cross street when she stumbled down a curb. But, she now recalled, as well as the main cross streets there were little alleys and mews. She might have turned down one of those. By now she could have walked a mile or more in the wrong direction.
    She tried to recall the heady feeling of excitement and triumph she had felt on the train, but it had gone, and now she just felt alone and afraid.
    She decided to stop and stand quite still. No harm could come to her like that.
    She stayed still for a long time: after a while she could not tell how long it was. Now she was afraid to move: fear had paralyzed her. She