Then, taking a long breath to quiet her heart, she went on up.  There was the name, and there the door.  She rang—­no one came; listened—­could hear no sound.  All looked so massive and bleak and dim—­the iron railings, stone stairs, bare walls, oak door.  She rang again.  What should she do?  Leave the letter?  Not see him after all—­her little romance all come to naught—­just a chilly visit to Bury Street, where perhaps there would be no one but Mrs. Markey, for her father, she knew, was at Mildenham, hunting, and would not be up till Sunday!  And she thought:  ’I’ll leave the letter, go back to the Strand, have some tea, and try again.’

She took out the letter, with a sort of prayer pushed it through the slit of the door, heard it fall into its wire cage; then slowly descended the stairs to the outer passage into Temple Lane.  It was thronged with men and boys, at the end of the day’s work.  But when she had nearly reached the Strand, a woman’s figure caught her eye.  She was walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned toward each other.  Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy, stood looking back after them.  They passed under a lamp; the light glinted on the woman’s hair, on a trick of Summerhay’s, the lift of one shoulder, when he was denying something; she heard his voice, high-pitched.  She watched them cross, mount the stone steps she had just come down, pass along the railed stone passage, enter the doorway, disappear.  And such horror seized on her that she could hardly walk away.

“Oh no!  Oh no!  Oh no!” So it went in her mind—­a kind of moaning, like that of a cold, rainy wind through dripping trees.  What did it mean?  Oh, what did it mean?  In this miserable tumult, the only thought that did not come to her was that of going back to his chambers.  She hurried away.  It was a wonder she was not run over, for she had no notion what she was doing, where going, and crossed the streets without the least attention to traffic.  She came to Trafalgar Square, and stood leaning against its parapet in front of the National Gallery.  Here she had her first coherent thought:  So that was why his chambers had been empty!  No clerk—­no one!  That they might be alone.  Alone, where she had dreamed of being alone with him!  And only that morning he had kissed her and said, “Good-bye, treasure!” A dreadful little laugh got caught in her throat, confused with a sob.  Why—­why had she a heart?  Down there, against the plinth of one of the lions, a young man leaned, with his arms round a girl, pressing her to him.  Gyp turned away from the sight and resumed her miserable wandering.  She went up Bury Street.  No light; not any sign of life!  It did not matter; she could not have gone in, could not stay still, must walk!  She put up her veil to get more air, feeling choked.