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he was pale, the deathly look had gone from his face. He looked unutterably tired, but very peaceful. Lying so, with all the painful lines of his face relaxed, she saw the likeness of his boyhood very clearly on his quiet features, and her heart gave a quick hard throb within her that sent the hot tears to her eyes. The sight of him grew blurred and dim. She just touched his black hair with trembling fingers as she fought back a sob. And then quite suddenly his eyes were open, looking at her. The pupils were enormously enlarged, giving him an unfamiliar look. But at sight of her, a quick smile flashed across his face--his old glad smile of welcome, and she knew him again. "Hullo--darling!" he said. She could not speak in answer. She could only lay her hand over his and hold it fast. He went on, his speech rapid, slightly incoherent. Guy had been like that, she remembered, in moments of any excitement or stress. "I've had a beastly bad dream, sweetheart. Thought I'd lost you--somehow I was messing about in a filthy fog, and there were beastly precipices about. And you--you were calling somewhere--telling me not to forget something. What was it? I'm dashed if I can remember now." "It--doesn't matter," she managed to say, though her voice was barely audible. He opened his eyes a little wider. "Are you crying, I say? What's the matter? What, darling? You're not crying for me? Eh? I shall get over it. I always come up again. Ask Kelly! Ask Kieff!" "Yes, you always come up again," Kieff said, in his brief, mechanical voice. Guy threw him a look that was a curious blend of respect and disgust. "Hullo, Lucifer!" he said. "What are you doing here? Come to show us the quickest way to hell? He's an authority on that, Sylvia. He knows all the shortest cuts." He broke off with a sudden hard breath, and Sylvia saw again that awful shadow gather in his eyes. She made way for Kieff, though not consciously at his behest, and there followed a dreadful struggling upon which she could not look. Kieff spoke once or twice briefly, authoritatively, and was answered by a sound more anguished than any words. Then at the end of several unspeakable seconds she heard Burke's footstep outside the door. She turned to him as he entered, with a thankfulness beyond all expression. "Oh, Burke, he is suffering--so terribly. Do see if you can help!" He passed her swiftly and went to the other side
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