He spent the hours till Mercedes should arrive in superintending the arrangement of the library, and pretending to dine. His study lamp smoked. Just as he and the housekeeper had succeeded in coaxing it to burn with its wonted urbanity, one quarter chimed from the nearest church clock-tower. A quarter-past nine! In a quarter-of-an-hour _she_ would be here—and the big, dingy room seemed to him full of the ill-savoured fumes of lamp oil. He dismissed the housekeeper, who knew he expected a patient, and threw open the windows. It was a clear night. The stars shone, brilliant specks in the dark-blue. He leaned out of the window, listening for the roll of wheels—for that peal of the hall bell which he longed for, yet dreaded. He would always long for her presence with an intense longing: yet this longing would be tempered by the dread that he would betray himself in some unguarded moment, would betray the passionate character of his love. He mentally forecast the interview. Leaning out in the sharpened autumnal air, he braced himself to endure: to keep himself at a completely respectful distance from the woman whose soul he believed to be the soul of his lost wife, and part of his own soul, but whose physical being belonged to the lazy voluptuary, the Prince Andriocchi. “It is hard,” he told himself. “Oh, God! Thou alone knowest _how_ hard!” The wild apostrophe brought a calm, a sudden peace—as if indeed his guardian angel had laid its holy hand upon his heated head; and as he took courage from the sense of occult help in his sore need, the clock slowly, warningly—it seemed to him with some knowledge of what was to come—chimed the half-hour. Would she come? What was it all about? Perhaps the next few minutes’ silence and suspense were the worst of his life. Often afterwards, looking back into his past with a shudder, he thought so. Yet the ring of the bell, sudden, impetuous, when it did come, was horrible. The sound of _her_ voice, the slow footsteps along the hall—he clenched his hands as he listened, and cold drops of sweat were on his brow. He went slowly to the door and opened it—for his limbs were stiff and heavy, disobedient to his will. Had he expected to see her also unnerved, trembling? He did not know—but the calm with which she entered was a shock to him. “Please—shut—lock the door,” she said quietly, but with a desperate calm—imperiously, but in a tone of voice in which command was mingled with respect. “I have come,” she said, throwing aside her cloak and seating herself by the table, “to tell you, my friend, what will cause you grief, what will make you angry. But I must tell you, for your sake, and for mine.”