One or two men spoke to him as he hurried from the House, but he shook them off almost uncivilly, and, making for the nearest exit, hailed a cab.

The drive to Grosvenor Square was a misery.  Time after time he changed from one corner of the cab to the other, his acute internal pains prolonged by every delay and increased by every motion.  At last, weak in all his limbs, he stepped from the vehicle at his own door.

Entering the house, he instantly mounted the stairs and passed to his own rooms.  Opening the bedroom door, he peered in cautiously, then pushed the door wide.  The light had been switched on, but the room was empty.  With a nervous excitement scarcely to be kept in check, he entered, shut and locked the door, then moved to the wardrobe, and, opening it, drew the tube of tabloids from the shelf.

His hand shook violently as he carried the tube to the table.  The strain of the day, the anxiety of the past hours, with their final failure, had found sudden expression.  Mixing a larger dose than any he had before allowed himself, he swallowed it hastily, and, walking across the room, threw himself, fully dressed, upon the bed.

IV

To those whose sphere lies in the west of London, Fleet Street is little more than a name, and Clifford’s Inn a mere dead letter.  Yet Clifford’s Inn lies as safely stowed away in the shadow of the Law Courts as any grave under a country church wall; it is as green of grass, as gray of stone, as irresponsive to the passing footstep.

Facing the railed-in grass-plot of its little court stood the house in which John Loder had his rooms.  Taken at a first glance, the house had the deserted air of an office, inhabited only in the early hours; but, as night fell, lights would be seen to show out, first on one floor, then on another—­faint, human beacons unconsciously signalling each other.  The rooms Loder inhabited were on the highest floor; and from their windows one might gaze philosophically on the tree-tops, forgetting the uneven pavement and the worn railing that hemmed them round.  In the landing outside the rooms his name appeared above his door, but the paint had been soiled by time, and the letters for the most part reduced to shadows; so that, taken in conjunction with the gaunt staircase and bare walls, the place had a cheerless look.

Inside, however, the effect was somewhat mitigated.  The room on the right hand, as one entered the small passage that served as hall, was of fair size, though low-ceiled.  The paint of the wall-panelling, like the name above the outer door, had long ago been worn to a dirty and nondescript hue, and the floor was innocent of carpet; yet in the middle of the room stood a fine old Cromwell table, and on the plain deal book-shelves and along the mantel-piece were some valuable books—­political and historical.  There were no curtains on the windows, and a common reading-lamp with a green shade stood on a desk.  It was the room of a man with few hobbies and no pleasures—­who existed because he was alive, and worked because he must.