Mosscrop stopped only when the stairs came to an end. He put down the bag, and she heard the rattle of a key in a lock. Then a match was struck, and a sudden flare of gas lit up the small square hall-way they stood in. As he pushed open a door to the left, he turned with a smiling face towards his companion. He discovered her drawn back at the edge of the stairs, her hands pressed against her bosom. Her eyes were fastened on him with a troubled look, and the sound of her breathing, quick and laboured, reached his ears. “These stairs are the very deuce when you’re not used to them,” he said, pleasantly. “I oughtn’t to have rushed you up them at such a pace.” “_That_ doesn’t matter,” panted the girl. “It is I who mightn’t to have come up at all.” David’s smile deepened and mellowed as he regarded her. “My dear Vestalia,” he began, laying a slight and kindly stress upon this first use of her name, “you speak hastily. You must offer no further remarks until you have quite recovered your breath. I will employ the interval by calling your attention to the inscription on the closed door, there, opposite to mine. You will observe that it is ‘Mr. Linkhaw.’ Have you ever heard it before?” She shook her head. “And are you conscious of no novel emotions at hearing it now? Does not the sight of those painted letters cause you to thrill with strange and mysterious sensations? No? What becomes then of the boasted intuition of the feminine mind?” There seemed to be a jest hidden somewhere in all this, and she smiled plaintively, dubiously. She took her hand from her breast, to show that her breathing was calmer. “You really assure me,” he went on, with a twinkling eye, “that the spectacle of this particular sported-oak does not especially stir your pulses, and peculiarly impress your imagination?” “Why should it?” “Why indeed! Ah, young woman, your sex gets much credit that it ill deserves. A mere man could do no worse in the matter of instinct. My dear friend, behind that door lies your present abode. That name ‘Linkhaw’ is the sign of your home--and you looked at them both and never guessed it!” Vestalia did not so much as glance at the door in question, but she gazed with much intentness at Mosscrop. “I don’t understand--what it is all about?” she said, slowly. He had stepped inside his own door, lighted the gas and pulled down the blinds. He returned, and stretched out his hand to take hers. “Do me the honour to come in and sit down,” he said, holding up her gloved fingers, and bowing over them. “You are my nearest neighbour, and yet you have never called upon me.”