'd put your hand in the fire
for me. Well, did you mean that?"

He snapped the question at her, and she was galvanized to drag herself
upright on the sofa.

"Yes, I said that."

"You'll do anything I ask?"

"Yes." From the slow-drawn answer he knew that more was coming. "I've
told you everything. I don't belong to myself. . . . There's one thing
that--that I don't think you're going to ask me."

"Why not?"

"Because you know I trust you. I always have. I always shall. Oh, God
forgive me for the way I've treated you! But it's your fault. Whatever I
did, I should know that I could always trust you and that in time you'd
understand!" A single sob escaped her, and she steadied herself like a
man stopping short at the edge of a precipice. "You've quite made up
your mind? . . . I must go now. Will you do something for me?"

"What is it?"

"Won't _you_ trust _me_? I don't want you to see me home, that's all.
It'll remind me of too much. Good-bye, Eric. I used to think I didn't
believe in God, but somebody's got to reward you, and I can't. Kiss
me--quickly, or I shall start crying again. Good-bye, Eric! Oh, oh--my
God!"

She stumbled to the door and twisted blindly at the handle. It was open
before he could help her. A grey wedge of fog thrust itself past her as
she hurried out of the hall.

"You're not going home alone!" he cried.

Half-way down the first flight of stairs she turned with arms
outstretched like a figure nailed to a cross.

"My darling; it's the last thing I shall ever ask you!"

4

Eric slept little that night. From eleven till two he walked up and down
his smoking-room, occasionally throwing himself into a chair for very
exhaustion, only to jump up restlessly and resume his aimless pacing.
The fingers of his right hand were yellow from the cigarettes that he
was always lighting and throwing away; the rest of him became stiff and
chilled as the fire died down. "_As if I'd murdered her._ . . ." The
phrase, self-coined, repeated itself in his brain even when he was not
thinking of the shaken, nerveless body which he had tried to revive.

His eyes turned again and again to the telephone. It would take Barbara
ten minutes to walk home, perhaps twenty in the fog; (he was frightened
by the thought of her being alone). By then she might have found
something to suggest. . . . The telephone could not be more silent if
she were in very truth dead. He sat down at his writing-table and
addressed an e