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