I'll see to it that he don't get lost for long." They felt a peculiar bump; a vision of brick pillars lingered before the rattling windows of the cab; a sudden cessation of atrocious jolting and uproarious jingling dazed the two women.

What had happened?
They sat motionless and scared in the profound stillness, till the door came open, and a rough, strained whispering was heard: "Here you are!" A range of gabled little houses, each with one dim yellow window, on the ground floor, surrounded the dark open space of a grass plot planted with shrubs and railed off from the patchwork of lights and shadows in the wide road, resounding with the dull rumble of traffic.

Before the door of one of these tiny houses--one without a light in the little downstairs window--the cab had come to a standstill.

Mrs Verloc's mother got out first, backwards, with a key in her hand.

Winnie lingered on the flagstone path to pay the cabman.