All fast, and she dare not ring the big bell, but stood listening for a moment or two, and then ran swiftly along the wall, and down the side alley to the door that admitted to the counting-house--the alley where her interview with Richard Glaire had been interrupted by the coming of Tom Podmore. She reached the door and tried the handle, giving it a push, when, to her great joy, she found it yield, and strung up to the pitch of doing anything by her intense excitement, she stepped into the dark entry, the door swinging to behind her, and she heard it catch. Then for a few minutes she stood still, holding her hand to her heart, which was beating furiously. At last, feeling that she must act, she felt her way along the wall to the counting-house door, looking in to find all still and dark, and then she cried in a low voice, "Father--Mr Richard--are you here?" No response, and she went to the door leading into the yard, to find it wide open and all without in the great place perfectly still and dark, while the great heaps of old metal and curiously-shaped moulds and patterns could just be made out in the gloom. A strange feeling of fear oppressed her, but she fought it back bravely, and went on, avoiding the rough masses in the path, and going straight to the chief door of the great works. The place was perfectly familiar to her, for she had as a child often brought her father's dinner, and been taken to see the engines, furnaces, and large lathes, with the other weird-looking pieces of machinery, which in those days had to her young eyes a menacing aspect, and seemed as if ready to seize and destroy the little body that crept so cautiously along. Entering the place then bravely, she went on through the darkness, with outstretched hands, calling softly again and again the name of Richard Glaire or her father. Several times, in spite of her precautions, she struck herself violently against pieces of metal that lay about, or came in contact with machinery or brickwork; but she forgot the pain in the eagerness of her pursuit till she had convinced herself that no one could be on the basement floor. Then seeking the steps, she proceeded to the floor above, calling in a low whisper from time to time as she went on between the benches, and past the little window that looked down on the alley, which had afforded Sim Slee a means of entry when the bands were destroyed. No one on this floor; and with a shiver, begotten of cold and dread, she proceeded to the steps leading to the next floor, which she searched in turn, ending by going to the third--a repetition of those below. "There is no one here," she said to herself at last; "unless he is asleep."