s home; now passenger into an eternity. A
lifetime settled; now preparing to be away on a journey inconceivably
tremendous, unimaginably awful. Did it shrink? Did it pause in its
preparations to peer and peep and shudder?

III

He felt very cold. He moved from the bed and replenished the fire and
crouched beside it.

This war! He said beneath his breath, "Young Perch! Young Perch!" Young
Perch was killed. Realise the thing! He was never going to see Young
Perch again. He was never going to see old Mrs. Perch again. He was
never to come into Puncher's again. Another place of his life was to be
walled up. His home like an empty house; the office like an empty house;
now no refuge here. Things were crowding in about him, things were
closing in upon him. And he was just to live on here, out of the war,
yet insupportably beset by the war. Beset by the war yet useless in the
war. Young Perch! How in pity was he to go on living out of the war, now
that the war had taken Young Perch and killed old Mrs. Perch and shut
this refuge from its oppression? He must get in. He could not endure it.
He could not, could not....

Ten minutes past three. There was perceptible to him no change in that
face upon the pillow. He brought a lamp from the dressing table and
looked at her, shading the light with his hand. Impenetrable mask!
Profound and awful mystery. Much more than a house that dreadfully
engrossed spirit was preparing to leave. This meagre form, scarcely
discernible beneath the coverlet, had been its fortress, once new, once
strong, once beautiful, once by its garrison proudly fought, splendidly
defended, added to, enlarged, adorned. Then past its glory, past
attention. Then crumbling, then decaying. Now to be abandoned. It had
known great stresses and abated them; sieges and withstood them;
assaults and defeated them. O vanity! It had but temporised with
conquest. Time's hosts had camped these many years about its walls, in
ceaseless investment, with desultory attacks, but with each attack
investing closer. Now a most terrible assault had breached the citadel.
The garrison was stricken amain. The fortress no longer could be
defended. Its garrison was withdrawing from that place and handing it
over to destruction.

IV

There was some strange sound in the room. He had dozed in a chair. Some
strange sound, or had he imagined it? He sat up tensely and listened. It
was her breathing, a harsh and laboured sound. He stepped