Doomsday by Warwick Deeping

It was about three o'clock on a December afternoon, and Christmas Eve, when she locked the front door of "Green Shutters," and picked up her suitcase. A steady drizzle had been falling, and though it had ceased, a grey and smoky gloom enveloped the landscape. She went down the muddy path, opened and closed the gate with an air of deliberate calmness, for Cinder Town was very much about her, looking like a collection of modern "English homes" as exhibited at Olympia. She knew that she was observed by Cinder Town; she had prepared herself to expect to meet people, and she did. Poor Coode stood nobly off the path for her as though he were letting a funeral pass. His one eye observed her suitcase.

-"Excuse me,--but are you carrying that to the station?"