Inside the flat nothing was to be heard but the clock ticking on the drawing-room mantelpiece.

Outside, there were intermittent noises and rattles from the traffic in the square, and beyond that again the muffled insistent murmur which seemed to Nelly this afternoon--in her utter loneliness--the most desolate sound she had ever heard.

The day had turned to rain and darkness, and the rapid closing of the October afternoon prophesied winter.

Nelly could not rouse herself to write the letter to Miss Martin.

She lay prone in a corner of the sofa, dreaming, as she had done all her life; save that the faculty--of setting in motion at will a stream of vivid and connected images--which had always been one of her chief pleasures, was now an obsession and a torment.