Once or twice as they traversed the Strand, Loder made a movement as if to break the silence, but nothing followed it.  He continued to lean forward with a certain dogged stiffness, his clasped hands resting on the doors of the cab, his eyes staring straight ahead.  Not once, as they threaded their way, did he dare to glance at Eve, though every movement, every stir of her garments, was forced upon his consciousness by his acutely awakened senses.

When at last they drew up before the dark archway of Middle Temple Lane, he descended hastily.  And as he mechanically turned to protect Eve’s dress from the wheel, he looked at her fully for the first time since their enterprise had been undertaken.  As he looked he felt his heart sink.  He had expected to see the marks of suffering on her face, but the expression he saw suggested something more than mere mental pain.

All the rich color that usually deepened and softened the charm of her beauty had been erased as if by a long illness; and against the new pallor of her skin her blue eyes, her black hair and eyebrows, seemed startlingly dark.  A chill colder than remorse, a chill that bordered upon actual fear, touched Loder in that moment.  With the first impulsive gesture he had allowed himself, he touched her arm.

“Eve—­” he began, unsteadily; then the word died off his lips.

Without a sound, almost without a movement, she returned his glance, and something in her eyes checked what he might have said.  In that one expressive look he understood all she had desired, all she had renounced—­the full extent of the ordeal she had consented to, and the motive that had compelled her consent.  He drew back with the heavy sense that repentance and pity were equally futile—­equally out of place.

Still in silence she stepped to the pavement and stood aside while Loder dismissed the cab.  To both there was something symbolic, something prophetic, in the dismissal.  Without intention and almost unconsciously they drew closer together as the horse turned, its hoofs clattering on the roadway, its harness jingling; and, still without realization, they looked after the vehicle as it moved away down the long, shadowed thoroughfare towards the lights and the crowds that they had left.  At last involuntarily they turned towards each other.

“Come!” Loder said, abruptly.  “It’s only across the road.”

Fleet Street is generally very quiet, once midnight is passed; and Eve had no need of guidance or protection as they crossed the pavement, shining like ice in the lamplight.  They crossed it slowly, walking apart; for the dread of physical contact that had possessed them in the cab seemed to have fallen on them again.

Inquisitiveness has little place in the region of the city, and they gained the opposite footpath unnoticed by the casual passer-by.  Then, still holding apart, they reached and entered Clifford’s Inn.