“I must go out,” he said, slowly.  “I must go now—­at once.”  His voice was hard.

Eve’s surprised, concerned eyes still searched his.  “Now —­at once?” she repeated.  “Now—­without breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry.”  He rose from his seat, and, carrying the slips of paper across the room, dropped them into the fire.  He did it, not so much from caution, as from an imperative wish to do something, to move, if only across the room.

Eve’s glance followed him.  “Is it bad news?” she asked, anxiously.  It was unlike her to be insistent, but she was moved to the impulse by the peculiarity of the moment.

“No,” he said shortly.  “It’s—­business.  This was written yesterday; I should have got it last night.”

Her eyes widened.  “But nobody does business at eight in the morning—­” she began, in astonishment; then she suddenly broke off.

Without apology or farewell, Loder had left the fireplace and walked out of the room.

He passed through the hall hurriedly, picking up a hat as he went; and, reaching the pavement outside, he went straight forward until Grosvenor Square was left behind; then he ran.  At the risk of reputation, at the loss of dignity, he ran until he saw a cab.  Hailing it, he sprang inside, and, as the cabman whipped up and the horse responded to the call, he realized for the first time the full significance of what had occurred.

Realization, like the need for action, came to him slowly, but when it came it was with terrible lucidity.  He did not swear as he leaned back in his seat, mechanically watching the stream of men on their way to business, the belated cars of green produce blocking the way between the Strand and Covent Garden.  He had no use for oaths; his feelings lay deeper than mere words.  But his mouth was sternly set and his eyes looked cold.

Outside the Law Courts he dismissed his cab and walked forward to Clifford’s Inn.  As he passed through the familiar entrance a chill fell on him.  In the clear, early light it seemed more than ever a place of dead hopes, dead enterprises, dead ambitions.  In the onward march of life it had been forgotten.  The very air had a breath of unfulfilment.

He crossed the court rapidly, but his mouth set itself afresh as he passed through the door-way of his own house and crossed the bare hall.

As he mounted the well-known stairs, he received his first indication of life in the appearance of a cat from the second-floor rooms.  At sight of him, the animal came forward, rubbed demonstratively against his legs, and with affectionate persistence followed him up-stairs.