The streets were empty save for the occasional cab setting up a terrific spray as it passed. Alice slowed her headlong dash lest she slip in the mud and in the fast-running gutters. She lost her bearings at one point; she knew the area as well as anyone, but in the darkness of a moonless night and in the driving rain familiar streets became unknown and strange. She thought she must be on Devonshire Street and, yes, here were the railings now on her right and on the other side of the railings the old cemetery. She followed the line of the railings and she prayed she did not mistake her way and was someplace else entirely. The graves in the old cemetery emerged intermittently out of a low-hanging mist, only the tops showing, made grotesque by the darkness and by her fear, for it was known that on the wettest nights slimy and putrid matter seeped out of the ground and onto the neighbouring pavements. But now she saw on her left the lights of the great railway station and she let out a little gasp of relief. It was tempting to pause for a moment to catch her breath but she was late, or she had a sense she must be late, for the journey had taken longer than it ought due to the blackness of the night and the encumbrance of the rain. Half past midnight was the time of the appointment and somewhere far off a church clock chimed, hollowly, forlornly, spurring her onwards.

The baby was an awkward size and had grown heavier at every step so that her arms had begun to ache almost at once and now they burned with pain, and as she held him to her breast she could not feel his heartbeat so that the thought that she might be carrying a dead thing struck her with horror. But there! He had moved. That was all she needed. She covered him again with the old blanket and set off once more.

She was close enough now to make out the stone-and-brick building of Sydney Terminal Station and its brightly lit entrance hall, and she hurried towards it. The sweep of roadway leading to the station was deserted, no horse or carriage stood waiting and none arrived to drop anyone off or pick anyone up, and she wondered just how late it was. In her urgency she almost slipped, throwing out a hand to the wet ground to save herself. Even here, where the road was properly paved, the rain had turned the ground to mud. She steadied herself and made one last final dash, landing up in the entranceway where she came to a halt.