Inside the entrance they paused, and Eve shivered involuntarily.  “How gray it is!” she said, faintly.  “And how cold!  Like a graveyard.”

Loder turned to her.  Far one moment control seemed shaken; his blood surged, his vision clouded; the sense that life and love were still within his reach filled him overwhelmingly.  He turned towards Eve; he half extended his hands.  Then, stirred by what impulse, moved by what instinct, it was impossible to say, he let them drop to his sides again.

“Come!” he said.  “Come!  This is the way.  Keep close to me.  Put your hand on my arm.”

He spoke quietly, but his eyes were resolutely averted from her face as they crossed the dim, silent court.

Entering the gloomy door-way that led to his own rooms, he felt her fingers tremble on his arm, then tighten in their pressure as the bare passage and cheerless stairs met her view; but he set his lips.

“Come!” he repeated, in the same strained voice.  “Come!  It isn’t far—­three or four flights.”

With a white face and a curious expression in her eyes, Eve moved forward.  She had released Loder’s arm as they crossed the hall; and now, reaching the stairs, she put out her hand gropingly and caught the banister.  She had a pained, numb sense of submission—­of suffering that had sunk to apathy.  Moving forward without resistance, she began to mount the stairs.

The ascent was made in silence.  Loder went first, his shoulders braced, his head held erect; Eve, mechanically watchful of all his movements, followed a step or two behind.  With weary monotony one flight of stairs succeeded another; each, to her unaccustomed eyes, seeming more colorless, more solitary, more desolate than the preceding one.

Then at last, with a sinking sense of apprehension, she realized that their goal was reached.

The knowledge broke sharply through her dulled senses; and, confronted by the closeness of her ordeal, she paused, her head lifted, her hand still nervously grasping the banister.  Her lips parted as if in sudden demand for aid; but in the nervous expectation, the pained apprehension, of the moment no sound escaped them.  Loder, resolutely crossing the landing, knew nothing of the silent appeal.

For a second she stood hesitating; then her own weakness, her own shrinking dismay, were submerged in the interest of his movements.  Slowly mounting the remaining steps, she followed him as if fascinated towards the door that showed dingily conspicuous in the light of an unshaded gas-jet.

Almost at the moment that she reached his side he extended his hand towards the door.  The action was decisive and hurried, as though he feared to trust himself.

For a space he fumbled with the lock.  And Eve, standing close behind him, heard the handle creak and turn under his pressure.  Then he shook the door.

At last, slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned round.  “I’m afraid things aren’t quite quite right,” he said, in a low voice.  “The door is locked and I can see no light.”