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 two he stood petrified, trying to grasp the full significance of his act. He had never rung the door-bell of that house,—not in all the years of his life. He had always entered in just this way. His grandfather had given him a key when he was thirteen,—the same key that he now held in his fingers and at which he stared in a sort of stupefaction.
He was suddenly aware of another presence in the hall,—a figure in white that stood near the foot of the staircase, motionless where it had been arrested by the unexpected opening of the door,—a tall, slender figure.
He saw her hand go swiftly to her heart.
"Why—why didn't you—let me know?" she murmured in a voice so low that he could hardly hear the words. "Why do you come in this way to—"
"What must you think of me for—for breaking in upon you—" he began, jerkily. "I don't know what possessed me to—you see, I still have the key I used while I lived—Oh, I'm sorry, Anne! I can't explain. It just seemed natural to—"
"Why did you come without letting me know?" she cried, and now her voice was shrill from the effort she made to suppress her agitation.
"I should have telephoned," he muttered. Suddenly he tore the key from the ring. "Here! It does not belong to me. I should not have the key to your—"