m would have been ridiculous.

She was apprehensive, and yet she was obscurely happy in her fears.
The large, inviting, dangerous universe was about her--she had escaped
from the confining shelter of the house. And the night was about
her. It was not necessary for her to wear three coats, like the gross
Batchgrew, in order to protect herself from the night! She could go
forth into it with no precaution. She was young. Her vigorous and
confident body might challenge perils.

When she had proceeded a hundred yards she stopped and turned to look
back at the cluster of houses collectively called Bycars.

The distinctive bow-window of Mrs. Maldon's shone yellow. Within the
sacred room was still the old lady, sitting expectant, and trying to
interest herself in the paper. Strange thought!

Bycars Lane led in a north-easterly direction over the broad hill
whose ridge separates the lane from the moorlands honeycombed with
coal and iron mines. Above the ridge showed the fire and vapour of
the first mining villages, on the way to Red Cow, proof that not all
colliers were yet on strike. And above that pyrotechny hung the
moon. The municipal park, of which Bycars Lane was the north-western
boundary, lay in mysterious and forbidden groves behind its spiked
red wall and locked gates, and beyond it a bright tram-car was leaping
down from lamp to lamp of Moorthorne Road towards the town. Between
the masses of the ragged hedge on the north side of the lane there was
the thin gleam of Bycars Pool, lost in a vague, unoccupied region of
shawdrucks and dirty pasture--the rendezvous of skaters when the frost
held, Louis Fores had told her, and she had heard from another source
that he skated divinely. She could believe it, too.

She resumed her way more slowly. She had only stopped because, though
burned with the desire to see him, she yet had an instinct to postpone
the encounter. She was almost minded to return. But she went on. The
town was really very near. The illuminated clock of the Town Hall
had dominion over it; the golden shimmer above the roofs to the left
indicated the electrical splendour of the new Cinema in Moorthorne
Road next to the new Primitive Methodist Chapel. He had told her about
that, too. In two minutes, in less than two minutes, she was among
houses again, and approaching the corner of Friendly Street. He would
come from the Moorthorne Road end of Friendly Street. She would peep
round the corner of Friendly Str