Q.Karkeek, Solicitor." The queerness of the name had attracted Hilda's attention several years earlier, when the signs were fresh.

It was an accident that she had noticed it; she had not noticed the door-plates or the wire-blinds of other solicitors.

She did not know Mr.Q.Karkeek by sight, nor even whether he was old or young, married or single, agreeable or repulsive.
The side entrance gave directly on to a long flight of naked stairs, and up these stairs Hilda climbed into the unknown, towards the redoubtable and the perilous.

"I'm bound to be seen," she said to herself, "but I don't care, and I _don't_ care!" At the top of the stairs was a passage, at right angles, and then a glazed door with the legend in black letters, "Q.

Karkeek, Solicitor," and two other doors mysteriously labelled "Private." She opened the glazed door, and saw a dirty middle-aged man on a stool, and she said at once to him, in a harsh, clear, deliberate voice, without giving herself time to reflect: "I want to see Mr.Karkeek." The man stared at her sourly, as if bewildered.
She said to herself: "I shan't be able to stand this excitement much longer." "You can't see Mr.Karkeek," said the man.