For a moment Loder stopped and his face reddened.  The tide of emotions still ran strong.  His hand went instinctively to his pocket; then his lips set.  He shook his head and walked on.

With the same hard expression about his mouth, he turned into Clifford’s Inn, passed through his own doorway, and mounted the stairs.

This time there was no milk-can on the threshold of his rooms and the door yielded to his pressure without the need of a key.  With a strange sensation of reluctance he walked into the narrow passage and paused, uncertain which room to enter first.  As he stood hesitating a voice from the sitting-room settled the question.

“Who’s there?” it called, irritably.  “What do you want?”

Without further ceremony the intruder pushed the door open and entered the room.  As he did so he drew a quick breath —­whether of disappointment or relief it was impossible to say.  Whether he had hoped for or dreaded it, Chilcote was conscious.

As Loder entered he was sitting by the cheerless grate, the ashes of yesterday’s fire showing charred and dreary where the sun touched them.  His back was to the light, and about his shoulders was an old plaid rug.  Behind him on the table stood a cup, a teapot, and the can of milk; farther off a kettle was set to boil upon a tiny spirit-stove.

In all strong situations we are more or less commonplace.  Loder’s first remark as he glanced round the disordered room seemed strangely inefficient.

“Where’s Robins?” he asked, in a brusque voice.  His mind teemed with big considerations, yet this was his first involuntary question.

Chilcote had started at the entrance of his visitor; now he sat staring at him, his hands holding the arms of his chair.

“Where’s Robins?” Loder asked again.

“I don’t know.  She—­I—­We didn’t hit it off.  She’s gone —­went yesterday.”  He shivered and drew the rug about him.

“Chilcote—­” Loder began, sternly; then he paused.  There was something in the other’s look and attitude that arrested him.  A change of expression passed over his own face; he turned about with an abrupt gesture, pulled off his coat and threw it on a chair; then crossing deliberately to the fireplace, he began to rake the ashes from the grate.

Within a few minutes he had a fire crackling where the bed of dead cinders had been, and, having finished the task, he rose slowly from his knees, wiped his hands, and crossed to the table.  On the small spirit-stove the kettle had boiled and the cover was lifting and falling with a tinkling sound.  Blowing out the flame, Loder picked up the teapot, and with hands that were evidently accustomed to the task set about making the tea.

During the whole operation he never spoke, though all the while he was fully conscious of Chilcote’s puzzled gaze.  The tea ready, he poured it into the cup and carried it across the room.