She found the rusty handle of a bell amongst the creeper-leaves, and pulled it.  A cracked metallic tinkle answered her, but no one came; only a faint sound as of someone pacing to and fro.  Then in the street beyond the outer gate a coster began calling to the sky, and in the music of his prayers the sound was lost.  The young man with a beard, resembling an artist, came down the path.

“Perhaps you could tell me, sir, if my son is out?”

“I’ve not seen him go out; and I’ve been painting here all the morning.”

Mrs. Pendyce looked with wonder at an easel which stood outside another door a little further on.  It seemed to her strange that her son should live in such a place.

“Shall I knock for you?” said the artist.  “All these knockers are stiff.”

“If you would be so kind!”

The artist knocked.

“He must be in,” he said.  “I haven’t taken my eyes off his door, because I’ve been painting it.”

Mrs. Pendyce gazed at the door.

“I can’t get it,” said the artist.  “It’s worrying me to death.”

Mrs. Pendyce looked at him doubtfully.

“Has he no servant?” she said.

“Oh no,” said the artist; “it’s a studio.  The light’s all wrong.  I wonder if you would mind standing just as you are for one second; it would help me a lot!”

He moved back and curved his hand over his eyes, and through Mrs. Pendyce there passed a shiver.

‘Why doesn’t George open the door?’ she thought.  ’What—­what is this man doing?’

The artist dropped his hand.

“Thanks so much!” he said.  “I’ll knock again.  There! that would raise the dead!”

And he laughed.

An unreasoning terror seized on Mrs. Pendyce.

“Oh,” she stammered, “I must get in—­I must get in!”

She took the knocker herself, and fluttered it against the door.

“You see,” said the artist, “they’re all alike; these knockers are as stiff’ as pokers.”

He again curved his hand over his eyes.  Mrs. Pendyce leaned against the door; her knees were trembling violently.

‘What is happening?’ she thought.  ’Perhaps he’s only asleep, perhaps——­Oh God!’

She beat the knocker with all her force.  The door yielded, and in the space stood George.  Choking back a sob, Mrs. Pendyce went in.  He banged the door behind her.

For a full minute she did not speak, possessed still by that strange terror and by a sort of shame.  She did not even look at her son, but cast timid glances round his room.  She saw a gallery at the far end, and a conical roof half made of glass.  She saw curtains hanging all the gallery length, a table with tea-things and decanters, a round iron stove, rugs on the floor, and a large full-length mirror in the centre of the wall.  A silver cup of flowers was reflected in that mirror.  Mrs. Pendyce saw that they were dead, and the sense of their vague and nauseating odour was her first definite sensation.