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 was
walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned toward each
other. Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy, stood looking back
after them. They passed under a lamp; the light glinted on the woman's
hair, on a trick of Summerhay's, the lift of one shoulder, when he was
denying something; she heard his voice, high-pitched. She watched them
cross, mount the stone steps she had just come down, pass along the
railed stone passage, enter the doorway, disappear.
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