THE steam of that stifling London day rose up in a choking, enervating haze from the hot grass. The shrill cries of children, loose from the Board School, cut the thick air. A train rushed across the bridge. Two or three cyclists tinkled their bells irritably as they spun down Wood Lane to the Uxbridge Road, leaving a cloud of gray grit behind them. Omnibuses pulled up at the corner of the short street near the few newly-built shops. From Portobello Road came the heavy rumble of more traffic, mixed with the nearer shout of costers vending dried fish and over-ripe fruit. She was a young woman. She stood still, in a limp, hopeless attitude, her face turned on Wormwood Scrubbs, her strained ey…
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