He wrote to her about his regard for her and their mutual sense of responsibility toward their son, and he wanted to say something else. But when he attempted to recall more intimate phrases it revived his sense of sin. He felt embarrassed and gave it up. * * * * * It was seven o'clock in the evening. The sun had gone. The sky at the zenith was pale, but along the horizon the foam-white clouds glowed with pink. From the city light had receded like a tide and rows of housetops on the length of the sky were like objects left there by a departing sea. They were separate and waited. As darkness gathered, it gathered first in the house fronts like an added heaviness. Above the houses the sky floated--higher, paler. The sky dilated and soared. Then the shining pallor grew dim. The sky sent itself down in grayness to the dark streets where the lamp lights floated in the dust as in clouds of ash. The house fronts, flaked with light, disintegrated in the general vagueness. Horace Ridge was ready to depart. On his last night before sailing he had sent for Alice to help him finish some work. She passed out of the twilight into the tiled corridor of the building in which he lived. The marble walls wavered in light. Lights, clustered above the wainscot, stabbed her eyes. A sleepy hallboy in a tan uniform vacantly watched her approach. She ignored the elevators and walked up the one flight of stairs and along the brown velvet carpet to the door she wanted. When she rang the small bell under the brass plate she heard the tinkle in the depths of her being, sharp, like a light moving under deep water. So keen was her perception of his coming that she was not conscious of separate incidents--footsteps, the sigh of the opening door. But in one act he was there in the place where she had expected him. He held a hand over his eyes that were guarded with a green shade. "Miss Alice. I'm merciless these days. Must get something done while the doing of it is in me." He smiled with his mouth, his eyes mysterious out of sight. "You're merciless to yourself. We all know that," Alice said. He walked after her into the library. Without seeing him, she was aware of the uncertainty of his tired steps. She was ashamed of her deep consciousness of his hesitation, knowing that he tried to conceal his half gestures from her. He sat down rather heavily and she stood in the center of the book-lined room, unpinning her hat. "I would like to have taken you for a lark on my last night instead of setting you to work. You'll be glad to forget about me." His mouth still smiled and his big hand moved up to his eyes under the shade. Alice did not answer. Then she said, "Are you sure you feel well enough to work?" She had the brusque presumptuous manner which she knew he tolerated. "The old dog has a lot of fight in him yet. You mustn't draw too many conclusions from appearances." The big room with the high shelves was gloomy in candle light.