'Clare Stanley, Marlborough Villa, N.W., to Michael Petrovitch, 37, Osnaburgh Street, N.W.—You are not going without good-bye. Please be in the Guildhall at twelve.'
Most men in his position would have been there at eleven at the latest. But the clock was on the first stroke of twelve as he walked through the crowd of fat pigeons, who, as usual, were busily eating more than was good for them in the Guildhall yard. He passed through the arched entrance and stood in the doorway. No one would have guessed by his face that he was keeping an appointment made by the woman he loved. He looked white and haggard, wretched and weary. His glance travelled round the large hall. In front of the statue of the Earl of Chatham stood the graceful black figure he looked for.
He walked across to her. As his footsteps sounded on the stone floor she turned her head, but did not move to meet him. When he was quite close to her she held out her hand in silence. He took it, pressed it, and let it fall at once. He spoke almost sternly.
'Why did you bring me here? I told you it was impossible for us to meet on the old terms.'
'I asked you to meet me here,' she said, 'because I had to come into the City on money affairs; and for the other, I have not asked you to do the impossible.'
She, too, was very pale, and spoke with what seemed like an effort at lightness.
'It is unworthy of you,' he went on, hardly noticing her answer, 'to make my renunciation so much harder for me.'
'There are enough inevitable renunciations in life for us without our making others by misunderstandings,' she said, her eyelids downcast.
He looked at her silently, as a man might in a dream which he feared to break by a word. At last he spoke, in a very low voice, with his eyes still on her face.