They wandered forth, apparently without aim, but steadily moving westward. They reached Hyde Park, where they sat for some time watching the gaily dressed people who flowed past like a coloured river. Here and there Masterman discerned a known face, and made brief comments on it. From Hyde Park they turned toward the city. Through the mitigated clamour of the Strand, and the almost total silence of Cheapside, they passed, till they came to the network of lanes and alleys round the Mansion House. They were strangely hushed. Where, day by day, so many thousands passed, driven by eagerness and haste, in an unnoticeable throng, a single footfall now roused clamant echoes.
"It's a queer thing, but I've never been in the city on a Sunday before," Masterman remarked. "I couldn't have believed it was so silent. It's like going to sleep in a thunderstorm, and waking up in a vault, with the coffin-lid nailed over you."
He paused at last before the high narrow building where he had had his offices.
"Wonder whether the caretaker's here. Let us see."
A little dark man answered the door.
"Why, it's Mr. Masterman!" he cried in astonishment. "Come in, sir!"
"So you remember me, Perkins?"
"Of course, sir. And there's no one sorrier than me for what has happened."
"Who's got my offices now?"
"They're still to let, sir. P'raps you'd like to see them."