It was the hour at which the Buildings is most quiet, and as Derrick went up the stone stairs, he did not meet any one; he stood for a moment or two opposite Celia's door, actually afraid to knock; for, though he had said to Donna Elvira that the girl might be married, that he might have lost sight of her for ever, he had always pictured her as behind that door, and always cherished the conviction that, if ever he should return, he should find her there. At last, he knocked. No response came. He knocked again, and the sound of the diminutive knocker echoed prophetically amidst the stone walls; still there was no response. His heart sank within him, and he leant against the iron hand-rail, gnawing at his lip with a keen disappointment, a blank dismay. He tried to tell himself that her absence might be only temporary, that she would return: it was ridiculous to suppose that she should not go out sometimes, that she should be sitting there within the room, waiting for him: absolutely ridiculous! He lit a cigarette and waited on the merely improbable chance of her return; the minutes grew into half an hour before he realised that he might wait hours, and that it would be easy to inquire if she were still living there. All the same, he lingered, as if he were loath to take his eyes from that door through which she had come to him as an angel of rescue--no, far better, as a pure, a brave woman. Presently he heard the sound of slow footsteps ascending the stairs. They paused on the floor beneath him, and Derrick, descending quickly, saw the thin, bent figure of an old man; he held a violin-case and a small parcel of grocery under his arm, and was on the point of unlocking the door immediately beneath that of the girl. The old man turned his head as Derrick came down upon him, and Derrick, notwithstanding the state of his mind, was struck by the nobility and dignity of the thin, wasted face and the dark, penetrating eyes. "I beg your pardon," said Derrick. "Can you tell me----?" He stopped, for the old man had dropped the parcel and stood looking, not at it, but at Derrick. Derrick hastened to pick it up, and, instinctively, raised his hat as he handed the small package. "I'm afraid I startled you, sir," he said, with that note of respect and deference which came into Derrick's voice when he was addressing women and the aged: it was just one of those little characteristics which attracted people to the young man, and made them take to him at first acquaintance. "I wanted to ask you a question about a young lady, the young lady who lives in the room above this." For the life of him, he could not bring himself to ask the question straight out.