She opened it bravely, and saw only a little corridor, crooking suddenly to the left and even darker than the outer hallway. She felt her way along the plastered wall to the corner, and beyond that in the darkness felt the panels of a final door. She opened it, half expecting a closet or cellar stair, and almost cried out, for the great, dim, glowing, glimmering space of the Assembly Hall was before her, with its windows now turning grey from the outer twilight; but its vaulted roof, its pillars and curved galleries of brown oak could be distinguished, its ranged tiers of seats, its wide, curved, carpeted platform, its high bulk of gilded organ pipes. She had seen it before only when the tiers of seats had been packed with people, when Aidee had filled the remaining space with his presence, his purposes, and his torrent of speech; when the organ had played before and after, ushering in and following the Preacher with its rolling music; when great thoughts and sounds, and multitudes of staring and listening people had been there, where now it was so empty, so lonely and still. Silvery dim bars of light slanted from the windows downward to the centre of the hall, and the varnished backs of the seats shone in long concentric curves. Lines of darkness lay between them; deep darkness was under the galleries; shadows clustered in the vault overhead, shadows on the platform below the organ, where stood the Preacher's high-backed seat. Aidee had given the Hall what living meaning it had. Empty, it was still haunted by his voice, haunted by his phrases. Camilla held her breath and stared from the little dark door, across the Hall, and saw Aidee standing by one of the gallery pillars. She started forward. Aidee came slowly from under the gallery to meet her. “Camilla!” “Oh! Why didn't you come?” “Come?” “To me. I thought you would!” He stood silently before her, and seemed absorbed and constrained. “When did you know?” she asked, and he answered mechanically, “This morning. I went down and saw the crowd under the window. I heard them talking. A newspaper reporter told me. Then I went to the bridge, but there was another crowd there, looking down at the water. So I came back.” They sat down in one of the seats. Camilla felt both excited and constrained. She was afraid to go on. During the dumb hour she had spent in the store-room, she had felt that life was plainly a ruinous affair, and that she was somehow touched by a horrible wickedness and stained forever. She imagined, shrinking, some disclosure and disgrace. She pictured Henry Champney's amazement and grief. And then it all had been swept from her mind by the thought of Aidee, suffering somewhere alone. But now that she had found him, she found him reserved and quiet, and she seemed to stop on the edge of a gulf or crater, to peer over, to expect some red, rending explosion, but it was all still and dim there; and it stared up at her coldly and quietly.