that he was really thinking -- he was only arrested in pure suspense inside himself, and thoughts wafted through his mind without order.

`I must go now and see Mama,' said Winifred, `and see Dadda before he goes to sleep.'

She bade them both good-night.

Gudrun also rose to take her leave.

`You needn't go yet, need you?' said Gerald, glancing quickly at the clock.' It is early yet. I'll walk down with you when you go. Sit down, don't hurry away.'

Gudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her. She felt almost mesmerised. He was strange to her, something unknown. What was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stood there so rapt, saying nothing? He kept her -- she could feel that. He would not let her go. She watched him in humble submissiveness.

`Had the doctor anything new to tell you?' she asked, softly, at length, with that gentle, timid sympathy which touched a keen fibre in his heart. He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferent expression.

`No -- nothing new,' he replied, as if the question were quite casual, trivial. `He says the pulse is very weak indeed, very intermittent -- but that doesn't necessarily mean much, you know.'

He looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a stricken look that roused him.

`No,' she murmured at length. `I don't understand anything about these things.'

`Just as well not,' he said. `I say, won't you have a cigarette? -- do!' He quickly fetched the box, and held her a light. Then he stood before her on the hearth again.

`No,' he said, `we've never had much illness in the house, either -- not till father.' He seemed to meditate a while. Then looking down at her, with strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled her with dread, he continued: `It's something you don't reckon with, you know, till it is there. And then you realise that it was there all the time -- it was always there -- you understand what I mean? -- the possibility of this incurable illness, this slow death.'

He moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette to his mouth, looking up at the ceiling.

`I know,' murmured Gudrun: `it is dreadful.'

He smoked without knowing. Then he took the cigarette from his lips, bared his teeth, and putting the tip of his tongue between his teeth spat off a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a man who is alone, or who is lost in thought.

`I don't know what the effect actually is, on one,' he said, and again he looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and stricken with knowledge, looking into his. He saw her submerged, and he turned aside his face. `But I absolutely am not the same. There's nothing left, if you understand what I mean. You seem to be clutching at the void -- and at the same time you are void yourself. And so you don't know what to do.'

`No,' she murmured. A heavy thrill ran down her nerves, heavy, almost pleasure, almost pain. `What can be done?' she added.

He turned, and flipped the ash from his cigarette on to the great marble hearth-stones, that lay bare in the room, without fender or bar.