more trifle,
capable of simple explanations. But he saw it through a disfiguring haze
of fever, and it was deadly in its significance. He hardly waited. He
crossed the thoroughfare, and once in a side street stumbled into a
shambling run. He did not stop until he reached her house. His former
reluctance broke before the imperative need to see her and make sure of
her. He stormed the broad, deep, carpeted stairs, pursued by a senseless
panic, But at the top his strength failed him. He felt his brain
throbbing in torture against his skull.

The old maid-servant nodded gravely, sympathetically.

"Yes, she's in, sir, but very busy--going away--sir." Going away. He
wavered in the dim hall, trying to control his flying thoughts. Going
away. And she had said nothing the night before--had not even warned
him. Some unexpected, untoward event striking in the dark. Illness. A
long separation. (And yet, he argued, he could not live without her.
She had no people who could claim her. They were dead. No one to come
between them. And there was her work. She would never leave that again.)

But there she stood in the midst of the disorder of a sudden going. Open
suit-cases, clothes strewn about the floor, she herself in some loose,
bright-coloured wrap, her brown hair tousled and her brows knit in
perplexity. She stopped short at sight of him, smiling ruefully, her
arms full.

"Oh, my dear--I'd forgotten." (Then she must have seen his face with its
dead whiteness, for she added quickly, half laughing): "Not you. Only
the time. I've not been at the hospital, and I thought I had still half
an hour. I've had to run round like mad, and even now I've got a hundred
things to do----"

He gulped. He said: "Where are you going?" in a flat, emotionless voice,
as though he did not care.

For a moment she did not answer. She let the clothes drop, forgotten, on
the sofa. He could see her weighing--considering what she should say to
him.

"Italy--Rome--I expect----"

"Italy--when?"

"I've got to be at the hospital to-morrow. Wednesday probably. I don't
believe it'll be for long. I hope not. A week or two. I've got leave
for a month."

"Why are you going?"

And now he could not keep the harsh break out of his voice. He could not
hide the physical weakness which made it impossible for him to stand.
And yet, though she looked at him, she seemed unaware that he was
suffering. She was absorbed in some diff