would
walk; he was too impatient for walking. Possibly Marguerite would be at
the studio; possibly a letter of hers had miscarried; letters did
miscarry. He was in a state of peculiar excitement as he paid the
cabman--an enigma to himself.

The studio was quite dark. Other studios showed lights, but not Agg's.
From one studio came the sound of a mandolin--he thought it was a
mandolin--and the sound seemed pathetic, tragic, to his ears. Agg was
perhaps in bed; he might safely arouse her; she would not object. But
no! He would not do that. Pride again! It would be too humiliating for
him, the affianced, to have to ask Agg: "I say, do you know anything
about Marguerite?" The affianced ought to be the leading authority as to
the doings of Marguerite. He turned away, walked a little, and perceived
the cabman swinging himself cautiously down from his perch in order to
enter a public-house. He turned back. Marguerite too might be in bed at
the studio. Or the girls might be sitting in the dark, talking--a habit
of theirs.... Fanciful suppositions! At any rate he would not knock at
the door of the studio, would not even enter the alley again. What
carried him into the Fulham Road and westwards as far as the Workhouse
tower and the corner of Alexandra Grove? Feet! But surely the feet of
another person, over which he had no control! He went in the lamplit
dimness of Alexandra Grove like a thief; he crept into it. The silver
had not yet died out of the sky; he could see it across the spaces
between the dark houses; it was sad in exactly the same way as the sound
of the mandolin had been sad.

What did he mean to do in the Grove? Nothing! He was just walking in it
by chance. He could indeed do nothing. For if he rang at No. 8 old Haim
would again confront him in the portico. He passed by No. 8 on the
opposite side of the road. No light showed, except a very dim glow
through the blind of the basement window to the left of the front door.
Those feet beneath him strolled across the road. The basement window was
wide open. The blind being narrower than the window-frame, he could see,
through the railings, into the room within. He saw Marguerite. She was
sitting, in an uncomfortable posture, in the rather high-seated
arm-chair in which formerly, when the room was her studio, she used to
sit at her work. Her head had dropped, on one shoulder. She was asleep.
On the table a candle burned. His heart behaved strangely. He flushed.
All his