m to remain, but they smiled and said they
must get their dinner. I commanded them not to go; but they spoke kindly
and said they would be back before long. I think I even wept a little,
like a child, but Sir John said something to the nurse, who began to
reason with me firmly, and then they were gone, and somehow I was
asleep....

* * * * *

When I awoke again, my head was fairly clear, but there was an
abominable reek of ether all about me. The moment I opened my eyes, I
felt that something had happened. I asked for Sir John and for Alice. I
saw a swift, curious look that I could not interpret come over the face
of the nurse, then she was calm again, her countenance impassive. She
reassured me in quick meaningless phrases, and told me to sleep. But I
could not sleep: I was absolutely sure that something had happened to
them, to my friend and to the woman I loved. Yet all my insistence
profited me nothing, for the nurses were a silent lot. Finally, I think,
they must have given me a sleeping potion of some sort, for I fell
asleep again.

For two endless, chaotic days, I saw nothing of either of them, Alice or
Sir John. I became more and more agitated, the nurse more and more
taciturn. She would only say that they had gone away for a day or two.

And then, on the third day, I found out. They thought I was asleep. The
night nurse had just come in to relieve the other.

"Has he been asking about them again?" she asked.

"Yes, poor fellow. I have hardly managed to keep him quiet."

"We will have to keep it from him until he is recovered fully." There
was a long pause, and I could hardly control my labored breathing.

"How sudden it was!" one of them said. "To be killed like that--" I
heard no more, for I leapt suddenly up in bed, crying out.

"Quick! For God's sake, tell me what has happened!" I jumped to the
floor and seized one of them by the collar. She was horrified. I shook
her with a superhuman strength.

"Tell me!" I shouted, "Tell me--Or I'll--!" She told me--what else could
she do.

"They were killed in an accident," she gasped, "in a taxi--a
collision--the Strand--!" And at that moment a crowd of nurses and
attendants arrived, called by the other frantic woman, and they put me
to bed again.

I have no memory of the next few days. I was in delirium, and I was
never told what I said during my ravings. Nor can I express the feelings
I was saturated with when at last I re