It was a sense of personal loss which had driven him out on to that canal path, a murderer at heart.  It was something of which he had been robbed, an acute and burning desire for vengeance, personal, entirely egotistical.  It was not the wrong to the woman which he resented, had there been any wrong.  It was the agony of his own personal misery.  He rose from his bed and stamped up and down his little chamber in a fear which was almost hysterical.  He threw wide open the windows, heedless of a driving snowstorm.  The subdued murmur of the city, with its paling lights, brought him no relief.  He longed frantically for some one who knew the truth, for Elizabeth before any one, with her soft, cool touch, her gentle, protective sympathy.  He was a fool to think he could live alone like this, with such a burden to bear!  Perhaps it would not be for long.  The risks were many.  At any moment he might hear the lift stop, steps across the corridor, the ring at his bell, the plainly-clad, businesslike man outside, with his formal questions, his grim civility.  He fumbled about in his little dressing-case until he came to a small box containing several white pills.  He gripped them in his hand and looked around, listening.  No, it was fancy!  There was still no sound in the building.  When at last he went back to bed, however, the little box was tightly clenched in his hands.

In the morning he went through his usual programme.  He arose soon after eight, lighted his little spirit lamp, made his coffee, cut some bread and butter, and breakfasted.  Then he lit a cigarette and sat down at his desk.  His imagination, however, seemed to have burnt itself out in the night.  Ideas and phrases were denied to him.  He was thankful, about eleven o’clock, to hear a ring at the bell and find Martha Grimes outside with a little parcel under her arm.  She was wearing the same shabby black dress and her fingers were stained with copying ink.  Her almost too luxuriant hair was ill-arranged and untidy.  Even her eyes seemed to have lost their lustre.

“I’ve finished,” she announced, handing him the parcel.  “Better look and see whether it’s all right.  I can’t do it up properly till I’ve had the whole.”

He cut the string and looked at a few of the sheets.  The typing was perfect.  He began to express his approval but she interrupted him.

“It’s better stuff than I expected,” she declared grudgingly.  “I thought you were only one of these miserable amateurs.  Where did you learn to write like that?”

Somehow, her praise was like a tonic.

“Do you like it?” he asked eagerly.

“Oh! my likes or dislikes don’t matter,” she replied.  “It’s good stuff.  You’ll find the account in there.  If you’d like to pay me, I’d like to have the money.”

He glanced at the neat little bill and took out his pocketbook.

“Sit down for a minute,” he begged.  “I’m stuck this morning—­can’t write a line.  Take my easy-chair and smoke a cigarette—­I have nothing else to offer you.”