“I understand,” she said at last, very slowly.  “I understand.  When will you take me to him?”

For a moment Loder said nothing, not daring to trust his voice; then he answered, low and abruptly.  “Now!” he said.  “Now, at once!  Now, this moment, if I may.  And—­and remember that I know what it costs you.”  As if imbued with fear that his courage might fail him, he suddenly released her hand, and, crossing the room to where a long, dark cloak lay as she had thrown it on her return home, he picked it up, walked to her side, and silently wrapped it about her.  Then, still acting automatically, he moved to the door, opened it, and stood aside while she passed out into the corridor.

In complete silence they descended the stairs and passed to the hall door.  There Crapham, who had returned to his duties since Loder’s entrance, came quickly forward with an offer of service.

But Loder dismissed him curtly; and with something of the confusion bred of Chilcote’s regime, the man drew back towards the staircase.

With a hasty movement Loder stepped forward, and, opening the door, admitted a breath of chill air.  Then on the threshold he paused.  It was his first sign of hesitation —­the one instant in which nature rebelled against the conscience so tardily awakened.  He stood motionless for a moment, and it is doubtful whether even Eve fully fathomed the bitterness of his renunciation—­the blackness of the night that stretched before his eyes.

Behind him was everything; before him, nothing.  The everything symbolized by the luxurious house, the eagerly attentive servants, the pleasant atmosphere of responsibility; the nothing represented by the broad public thoroughfare, the passing figures, each unconscious of and uninterested in his existence.  As an interloper he had entered this house; as an interloper—­a masquerader—­he had played his part, lived his hour, proved himself; as an interloper he was now passing back into the dim world of unrealized hopes and unachieved ambitions.

He stood rigidly quiet, his strong figure silhouetted against the lighted hall, his face cold and set; then, with a touch of fatality, Chance cut short his struggle.

An empty hansom wheeled round the corner of the square; the cabman, seeing him, raised his whip in query, and involuntarily he nodded an acquiescence.  A moment later he had helped Eve into the cab.

“Middle Temple Lane!” he directed, pausing on the step.

“Middle Temple Lane is opposite to Clifford’s Inn,” he explained as he took his place beside her.  “When we get out there we have only to cross Fleet Street.”

Eve bent her head in token that she understood, and the cab moved out into the roadway.

Within a few minutes the neighborhood of Grosvenor Square was exchanged for the noisier and more crowded one of Piccadilly, but either the cabman was overcautious or the horse was below the average, for they made but slow progress through the more crowded streets.  To the two sitting in silence the pace was wellnigh unbearable.  With every added movement the tension grew.  The methodical care with which they moved seemed like the tightening of a string already strained to breaking-point, yet neither spoke—­because neither had the courage necessary for words.