Hamel did not reply for a moment.  He was trying to ask himself why, even in the midst of this rush of anticipatory happiness, he should be conscious of a certain reluctance to leave the Tower—­and Mr. Fentolin.  He was looking longingly towards the Hall.  Mr. Fentolin waved him away.

“Go and make love,” he ordered, “and leave me alone.  We are both in pursuit of beauty—­only our methods differ.”

Hamel hesitated no longer but walked up the narrow path with swift, buoyant footsteps.  Everywhere he seemed to be surrounded by the glorious spring sunshine.  It glittered in the little pools and creeks by his side.  It drew a new colour from the dun-coloured marshes, the masses of emerald seaweed, the shimmering sands.  It flashed in the long row of windows of the Hall.  As he drew nearer, he could see the banks of yellow crocuses in the sloping gardens behind.  There were odours of spring in the air.  He ran lightly up the terrace steps.  There was an easy-chair drawn into her favourite corner, and a book upon the table, but no sign of Esther.  He hesitated for a moment, and then, retracing his steps along the terrace, entered the house by the front door, which stood wide open.  There was no one in the hall, scarcely a sound about the place.  A great clock ticked solemnly from the foot of the stairs.  There was not even a servant in sight.  Hamel wandered around, a a loss what to do.  He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in.  It was empty.  He turned away, meaning to ring a bell.  On his way across the hall he paused.  A curiously suggestive sound reached him faintly from the end of one of the passages.  It was the click of a typewriter.

Hamel stood for a moment perfectly still.  He had hurried up to the Hall, filled with the one selfish joy common to all mankind.  He had had no thought save the thought of seeing Esther.  The click of that machine brought him hack to the stern realities of life.  He remembered his talk to Kinsley, his promise.  On the hall table he could see from where he was standing the great headlines which announced the nation’s anxiety.  He was in the house of a suspected spy.  The click of the typewriter was an accompaniment to his thought.  He looked around once more and listened.  Then he made his way quietly across the hail and down the long passage, at the end of which the room which Mr. Fentolin called his workroom was situated.  He turned the handle of the door and entered, closing it immediately behind him.  The woman who was typing paused with her fingers upon the keys.  Her eyes met his coldly, without curiosity.  She had paused in her work, but she took no other notice of his coming.

“Has Mr. Fentolin sent you here?” she asked at last.

He came over to the typewriter.

“Mr. Fentolin has not sent me,” he said slowly.  “I am here on my own account.  I dare say you will think that I am a lunatic to come to you like this.  Nevertheless, please listen to me.”