e did
not? She got up and stood at the window of her empty carriage. There was
the river--and there--yes, the very backwater where he had begged her to
come to him for good. It looked so different, bare and shorn, under the
light grey sky; the willows were all polled, the reeds cut down. And a
line from one of his favourite sonnets came into her mind:

"Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."

Ah, well! Time enough to face things when they came. She would only
think of seeing him! And she put the letter back to burn what hole it
liked in the pocket of her fur coat.

The train was late; it was past five, already growing dark, when she
reached Paddington and took a cab to the Temple. Strange to be going
there for the first time--not even to know exactly where Harcourt
Buildings were. At Temple Lane, she stopped the cab and walked down that
narrow, ill-lighted, busy channel into the heart of the Great Law.

"Up those stone steps, miss; along the railin', second doorway." Gyp
came to the second doorway and in the doubtful light scrutinized the
names. "Summerhay--second floor." She began to climb the stairs. Her
heart beat fast. What would he say? How greet her? Was it not absurd,
dangerous, to have come? He would be having a consultation perhaps.
There would be a clerk or someone to beard, and what name could
she give? On the first floor she paused, took out a blank card, and
pencilled on it:

"Can I see you a minute?--G."

Then, taking a long breath to quiet her heart, she went on up. There
was the name, and there the door. She rang--no one came; listened--could
hear no sound. All looked so massive and bleak and dim--the iron
railings, stone stairs, bare walls, oak door. She rang again. What
should she do? Leave the letter? Not see him after all--her little
romance all come to naught--just a chilly visit to Bury Street, where
perhaps there would be no one but Mrs. Markey, for her father, she knew,
was at Mildenham, hunting, and would not be up till Sunday! And she
thought: 'I'll leave the letter, go back to the Strand, have some tea,
and try again.'

She took out the letter, with a sort of prayer pushed it through
the slit of the door, heard it fall into its wire cage; then slowly
descended the stairs to the outer passage into Temple Lane. It was
thronged with men and boys, at the end of the day's work. But when she
had nearly reached the Strand, a woman's figure caught her eye. She w