No one met her on the stairs.  She was safe in the cold deserted parlour where she had stood this morning.  Cold, doubtless, but she could not be conscious of it; in her veins there seemed rather to be fire than blood.  Her brain was clear, but in an unnatural way; the throbbing at her temples ought to have been painful, but only excited her with a strange intensity of thought.  And she felt, amid it all, a dread of what was before her; only the fever, to which she abandoned herself with a sort of reckless confidence, a faith that it would continue till this interview was over, overcame an impulse to rush back into her hiding-place, to bury herself in shame, or desperately whelm her wretchedness in the final oblivion. . . .

He was very punctual.  The heavy bell of St. Paul’s had not reached its ninth stroke when she heard his knock at the door.

He came in without speaking, and stood as if afraid to look at her.  The lamp, placed on a side-table, barely disclosed all the objects within the four walls; it illumined Sidney’s face, but Clara moved so that she was in shadow.  She began to speak.

’You understood my note?  The people who live here are away, and I have ventured to borrow their room.  They are friends of my father’s.’

At the first word, he was surprised by the change in her voice and accentuation.  Her speech was that of an educated woman; the melody which always had such a charm for him had gained wonderfully in richness.  Yet it was with difficulty that she commanded utterance, and her agitation touched him in a way quite other than he was prepared for.  In truth, he knew not what experience he had anticipated, but the reality, now that it came, this unimaginable blending of memory with the unfamiliar, this refinement of something that he had loved, this note of pity struck within him by such subtle means, affected his inmost self.  Immediately he laid stern control upon his feelings, but all the words which he had designed to speak were driven from memory.  He could say nothing, could only glance at her veiled face and await what she had to ask of him.

’Will you sit down?  I shall feel grateful if you can spare me a few minutes.  I have asked you to see me because—­indeed, because I am sadly in want of the kind of help a friend might give me.  I don’t venture to call you that, but I thought of you; I hoped you wouldn’t refuse to let me speak to you.  I am in such difficulties—­such a hard position—­’

‘You may be very sure I will do anything I can to be of use to you,’ Sidney replied, his thick voice contrasting so strongly with that which had just failed into silence that he coughed and lowered his tone after the first few syllables.  He meant to express himself without a hint of emotion, but it was beyond his power.  The words in which she spoke of her calamity seemed so pathetically simple that they went to his heart.  Clara had recovered all her faculties.  The fever and the anguish and the dread were no whit diminished, but they helped instead of checking her.  An actress improvising her part, she regulated every tone with perfect skill, with inspiration; the very attitude in which she seated herself was a triumph of the artist’s felicity.