Greta stopped at the door of Hugh Ritson's office and knocked. A moment later he and she were face to face. He was dressed in his pit flannels, and was standing by a table on which a lamp burned. When he recognized her, he passed one hand across his brow, the other he rested on the mantel-piece. There was a momentary twitching of her lips, and he involuntarily remarked that in the time that had passed since they last met she had grown thinner.
"Come with me," she said in a trembling whisper. "Mercy's child is dead, and the poor girl is asking for you in her great trouble."
He did not speak at once, but shaded his eyes from the lamp. Then he said, in a voice unlike his own:
"I will follow you."
She had held the door in her hand, and now she turned to go. He took one step toward her.
"Greta, have you nothing more to say to me?" he asked.
"What do you wish me to say?"
He did not answer; his eyes fell before her.
There was a slight wave of her hand as she added:
"The same room ought never to contain both you and me—it never should have done so—but this is not my errand."