He was thinking of
her now, down there in that grim old house, trembling in some darkened
place, her eyes wide with alarm, her heart beating wildly with terror,--ah,
he remembered so well how wildly her heart could beat!

He had forgotten his words to Simmy: "I can't trust myself!" There was but
one object in his mind and that was to retract the unnecessary challenge
with which he had closed his letter to her in January. Why should he have
demanded of her a sacrifice for which he could offer no consolation? He
now admitted to himself that when he wrote the blighting postscript he was
inspired by a mean desire to provoke anticipation on her part. "If you
also are not a coward, you will return to my grandfather's house, where
you belong." What right had he to revive the hope that she accounted dead?
She still had her own life to live, and in her own way. He was not to be a
part of it. He was sure of that, and yet he had given her something on
which to sustain the belief that a time would come when their lives might
find a common channel and run along together to the end. She had taken his
words as he had hoped she would, and now he was filled with shame and
compunction.

The rain was coming down in sheets when the taxi-cab slid up to the curb
in front of the house that had been his home for thirty years. His home!
Not hers, but _his_! She did not belong there, and he did. He would never
cease to regard this fine old house as his home.

He was forced to wait for the deluge to cease or to slacken. For many
minutes he sat there in the cab, his gaze fixed rigidly on the streaming,
almost opaque window, trying to penetrate the veil of water that hung
between him and the walls of the house not twenty feet away. At last his
impatience got the better of him, and, the downpour having diminished
slightly, he made a sudden swift dash from the vehicle and up the stone
steps into the shelter of the doorway. Here he found company. Four
workmen, evidently through for the day, were flattened against the walls
of the vestibule.

They made way for him. Without realising what he did, he hastily snatched
his key-ring from his pocket, found the familiar key he had used for so
many years, and inserted it in the lock. The door opened at once and he
entered the hall. As he closed the door behind him, his eyes met the
curious gaze of the four workmen, and for the first time he realised what
he had done through force of habit. For a moment or t