But this other engagement was a very different matter.

They were going to attempt a further advance.  It had, indeed, been explained to him that these attempts were but tentative and experimental; it was impossible to dictate exactly what should fall; but the object on Sunday night was to go a step further, and to bring about, if possible, the materialization process to such a point that the figure could be handled, and could speak.  And it seemed to Laurie as if this would be final indeed....

* * * * *

So he sat this evening, within forty-eight hours of the crisis, thinking steadily.  Half a dozen times, perhaps, the thought of Maggie recurred to him; but he was learning how to get rid of that.

Then he took up the note and opened it.  It was filled with four pages of writing.  He turned to the end and read the signature.  Then he turned back and read the whole letter.

* * * * *

It was very quiet as he sat there thinking over what he had read.  The noise of Fleet Street came up here only as the soothing murmur of the sea upon a beach; and he himself sat motionless, the firelight falling upwards upon his young face, his eyes, and his curly hair.  About him stood his familiar furniture, the grand piano a pool of glimmering dark wood in the background, the tall curtained windows suggestive of shelter and warmth and protection.

Yet, if he had but known it, he was making an enormous choice.  The letter was from the man he had met at midday, and he was deciding how to answer it.  He was soothed and quieted by his loneliness, and his irritation had disappeared:  he regarded the letter from a youthfully philosophical standpoint, pleased with his moderation, as the work of a fanatic; he was considering only whether he would yield, for politeness’ sake, to the importunity, or answer shortly and decisively.  It seemed to him remarkable that a mature and experienced man could write such a letter.

At last he got up, went to his writing-table, and sat down.  Still he hesitated for a minute; then he dipped his pen and wrote.

When he had finished and directed it, he went back to the fire.  He had an hour yet in which to think and think before he need dress.  He had promised to dine with Mrs. Stapleton at half-past seven.  He had a touch of headache, and perhaps might sleep it off.

Chapter XII

I

Lady Laura crossed the road by Knightsbridge Barracks and turned again homewards through the Park.

It was one of those days that occasionally fall in late February which almost cheer the beholder into a belief that spring has really begun.  Overhead the sky was a clear pale blue, flecked with summer-looking clouds, gauzy and white; beneath, the whole earth was waking drowsily from a frost so slight as only to emphasize the essential softness of the day that followed:  the crocuses were alight in the grass, and an indescribable tint lay over all that had life, like the flush in the face of an awakening child.  But these days are too good to last, and Lady Laura, who had looked at the forecast of a Sunday paper, had determined to take her exercise immediately after church.