our hands are like ice."

He took off his coat as he spoke and laid it over her.

"I'm afraid we've got a long journey yet," he said ruefully. "If you
could get some sleep."

She turned her head away and closed her eyes.

She looked very young and appealing in the depressing light of the
carriage.

Micky sat looking at her in silence. She cared so little for him that
she had even forgotten her anger against him; nothing he could do or
say really mattered to her, she was not sufficiently interested in him
to even trouble to hate him for long.

He wondered what June was thinking, and Miss Dearling! He wished from
the depths of his soul that he had remembered to send those wires.
There was his car, too--he had left that in the yard at Charing
Cross--what the dickens would become of it?--not that it mattered
much, he was too miserable to be seriously concerned about anything.

Some minutes passed, but Esther did not move. Micky spoke her name
once softly--

"Esther...." But she did not answer; he leaned over and touched her
hand, but she did not stir; in spite of what she had said she was
asleep.

Micky gave a sigh of relief. He drew his coat and the rug more closely
around her; he was very cold himself, but that did not trouble him; he
finished the contents of the supper basket before he went back to his
own corner.

The train rumbled on through the night; it dragged into many little
stations and stopped jerkily, but Esther did not wake.

Once when she moved and the rug slipped, Micky rose and quietly
replaced it. He was very tired himself, but his brain would not allow
him to sleep; he felt as if he were living through years during these
long hours.

He sat looking at Esther with wistful eyes. Why was it that people
never fell in love with the right people? he asked himself vaguely. He
could have made her so happy.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then dragged them open again. He must
not go to sleep, whatever happened. He sat up stiffly.

Presently he lifted a corner of the blind. The sky looked a little
lighter, as if dawn were not far away. He looked at his watch. Nearly
two!

A sudden impulse came to him to wake Esther and make her listen now to
what he had to say. The time was getting short, and there was so much
to tell her and explain.

He rose and bent over her, but she did not move, and he went back
again to his corner.

He let the window down a little way, hoping the cold night air would