He stepped back as if she had struck him. He made as if to answer her; then his parted lips came together again, his chin sank until it touched his breast. He turned, and with dragging feet walked slowly out of the room, softly closing the door. She lay there invaded suddenly by a great fear. She strained her ears to catch the sounds of his footsteps in the passage, until finally the slamming of the door leading to the street announced to her that, taking her at her word, he was gone, indeed. She sat up in alarm, holding her breath, listening to his steps moving quickly now, almost at a run, up the street. At last she could hear them no longer. Her fears mounted. For all her brave talk, the thought of dying alone, abandoned, in this empty house filled her with terror; so that it seemed to her now that even the company of that dastard would have been better than this horror of loneliness in the hour of death. She attempted to rise, to follow, to seek the companionship of human beings who might yet afford her some assistance and ease her sufferings. But her limbs refused their office. She got to her feet merely to collapse again, exhausted. And now she flung herself prone upon the daybed, and sobbed aloud until the searing pain in her breast conquered even her self-pity, and stretched her writhing in agony as if upon a rack. At last a merciful unconsciousness supervened. And meanwhile Holles was moving mechanically and instinctively at speed up Sermon Lane in the direction of Paul’s. Why he should have chosen to go that way sooner than another he could not have told you. The streets were utterly deserted even at that early hour, for this was not a time in which folk chose to roam abroad at nights, and, moreover, the Lord Mayor’s enactments now compelled all taverns and houses of entertainment to close at nine o’clock. Without hat or cloak, his empty scabbard dangling like a limp tail about his legs, he sped onward, a man half-distracted, with but a vague notion of his object and none of the direction in which its fulfilment would be likeliest. As he was approaching Carter Lane, a lantern came dancing like a will-o’-the-wisp round the corner to meet him, and presently the dark outline of the man who carried it grew visible. This man walked with the assistance of a staff which at closer quarters the lantern’s rays revealed to be red in colour. With a gasp of relief, Holles flung forward towards him. “Keep your distance, sir! Keep your distance!” a voice warned him out of the gloom. “’Ware infection.” But Holles went recklessly on until the long red wand was raised and pointed towards him to arrest his advance. “Are you mad, sir?” the man cried sharply. Holles could make out now the pallid outline of his face, which the broad brim of his steeple-hat had hitherto kept almost entirely in shadow. “I am an examiner of infected houses.”