“This is important to you,” said the girl, after reflecting for a moment, her eyes down.

“Yes, it is important,” Piers answered, in a voice not quite under control.  “It means that, if I choose, I can live without working at the business.  Just live; no more, at present, though it may mean more in the future.  Things have gone well with us, for a beginning; much better than I, at all events, expected.  What I should like to do, now, would be to find a man to take my place in London.  I know someone who, just possibly, might be willing—­a man at Liverpool.”

“Isn’t it a risk?” said Olga, regarding him with shamefaced anxiety.

“I don’t think so.  If I could do so well, almost an real man of business would be sure to do better.  Moncharmont, you know, is the indispensable member of the firm.”

“And—­what would you do?  Go abroad, I suppose?”

“For a time, at all events.  Possibly to Russia—­I have a purpose —­too vague to speak of yet—­I should frighten myself if I spoke of it.  But it all depends upon——­” He broke off, unable to command his voice.  A moment’s silence, during which he stared at the woman on the wall, and he could speak again.  “I can’t go alone.  I can’t do —­can’t think of—­anything seriously, whilst I am maddened by solitude!”

Olga sat with her head bent.  He drew nearer to her.

“It depends upon you.  I want you for my companion—­for my wife ——­”

She looked him in the face—­a strange, agitated, half-defiant look.

“I don’t think that is true!  You don’t want me——­”

“You!  Yes, you, Olga!  And only you!”

“I don’t believe it.  You mean—­any woman.”  Her voice all but choked.  “If that one”—­she pointed to the wall—­“could step towards you, you would as soon have her.  You would rather, because she is more beautiful.”

“Not in my eyes!” He seized her hand, and said, half laughing, shaken with the moment’s fever, “Come and stand beside her, and let me see how the real living woman makes pale the ideal!”

Flushing, trembling at his touch, she rose.  Her lips parted; she had all but spoken; when there came a loud knock at the door of the room.  Their hands fell, and they gazed at each other in perturbation.

“Silence!” whispered Otway.  “No reply!”

He stepped softly to the door; silently he turned the key in the lock.  No sooner had he done so, than someone without tried the handle; the door was shaken a little, and there sounded another knock, loud, peremptory.  Piers moved to Olga’s side, smiled at her reassuringly, tried to take her hand; but, with a frightened glance towards the door, she shrank away.

Two minutes of dead silence; then Otway spoke just above his breath.

“Gone!  Didn’t you hear the footstep on the stairs?”