the moon
and the bright, still spaces of the night and the slow-moving, whitened
water. Why had she not felt from the first that he was overwrought and
only fit for bed?

Thus, very slowly, they made their way up by the factory again into the
lane by the church magnate's garden, under the branches of the sycamores,
past the same white-faced old house at the corner, to the high street
where some few people were still abroad.

At the front door of the hotel stood Felix, looking at his watch,
disconsolate as an old hen. To her great relief he went in quickly when
he saw them coming. She could not bear the thought of talk and
explanation. The one thing was to get Derek to bed. All the time he had
gone along with that taut face; and now, when he sat down on the shiny
sofa in the little bedroom, he shivered so violently that his teeth
chattered. She rang for a hot bottle and brandy and hot water. When he
had drunk he certainly shivered less, professed himself all right, and
would not let her stay. She dared not ask, but it did seem as if the
physical collapse had driven away, for the time at all events, that
ghostly visitor, and, touching his forehead with her lips--very
motherly--so that he looked up and smiled at her--she said in a
matter-of-fact voice:

"I'll come back after a bit and tuck you up," and went out.

Felix was waiting in the hall, at a little table on which stood a bowl of
bread and milk. He took the cover off it for her without a word. And
while she supped he kept glancing at her, trying to make up his mind to
words. But her face was sealed. And all he said was:

"Your uncle's gone to Becket for the night. I've got you a room next
mine, and a tooth-brush, and some sort of comb. I hope you'll be able to
manage, my child."

Nedda left him at the door of his room and went into her own. After
waiting there ten minutes she stole out again. It was all quiet, and she
went resolutely back down the stairs. She did not care who saw her or
what they thought. Probably they took her for Derek's sister; but even
if they didn't she would not have cared. It was past eleven, the light
nearly out, and the hall in the condition of such places that await a
morning's renovation. His corridor, too, was quite dark. She opened the
door without sound and listened, till his voice said softly:

"All right, little angel; I'm not asleep."

And by a glimmer of moonlight, through curtains designed to keep out
n