So they came to the top at last.

“Here we are,” she said, halting before the door; “give me the keys, they work intricately.”

He handed them to her in silence; she took them in her hand and tried to smile.

“If you really go to-morrow,” she said, as she put one into the lock, “I hope—” her lips trembled traitorously and she could not go on.

Dites,” he whispered, coming nearer, “you do care a little, a very—”

He dropped the matches a second time.

That was never an accident,” she cried, below her breath.

“It was not my intention,” he declared; then he added, “you have only to go in, I can very well find my way out in the dark.”

But the door refused to open; instead, the key turned around and around in the lock.

“I do believe,” she said at last, in a curiously inexplicable tone, “that we have come up the wrong stairs!”