‘How nice!’ said the woman.  She leisurely lifted her veil, unbottoned the first button of her left glove, and pressed out from its palm a Najdolene-case.

‘Don’t!’ said Conroy, not realising he had spoken.

‘I beg your pardon.’  The deep voice was measured, even, and low.  Conroy knew what made it so.

‘I said “don’t”!  He wouldn’t like you to do it!’

‘No, he would not.’  She held the tube with its ever-presented tabloid between finger and thumb.  ’But aren’t you one of the—­ah—­“soul-weary” too?’

’That’s why.  Oh, please don’t!  Not at first.  I—­I haven’t had one since morning.  You—­you’ll set me off!’

‘You?  Are you so far gone as that?’

He nodded, pressing his palms together.  The train jolted through Vauxhall points, and was welcomed with the clang of empty milk-cans for the West.

After long silence she lifted her great eyes, and, with an innocence that would have deceived any sound man, asked Conroy to call her maid to bring her a forgotten book.

Conroy shook his head.  ‘No.  Our sort can’t read.  Don’t!’

‘Were you sent to watch me?’ The voice never changed.

‘Me?  I need a keeper myself much more—­this night of all!’

’This night?  Have you a night, then?  They disbelieved me when I told them of mine.’  She leaned back and laughed, always slowly.  ’Aren’t doctors stu-upid?  They don’t know.’

She leaned her elbow on her knee, lifted her veil that had fallen, and, chin in hand, stared at him.  He looked at her—­till his eyes were blurred with tears.

‘Have I been there, think you?’ she said.

‘Surely—­surely,’ Conroy answered, for he had well seen the fear and the horror that lived behind the heavy-lidded eyes, the fine tracing on the broad forehead, and the guard set about the desirable mouth.

’Then—­suppose we have one—­just one apiece?  I’ve gone without since this afternoon.’

He put up his hand, and would have shouted, but his voice broke.

’Don’t!  Can’t you see that it helps me to help you to keep it off?  Don’t let’s both go down together.’

’But I want one.  It’s a poor heart that never rejoices.  Just one.  It’s my night.’

‘It’s mine—­too.  My sixty-fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.’  He shut his lips firmly against the tide of visualised numbers that threatened to carry him along.

‘Ah, it’s only my thirty-ninth.’  She paused as he had done.  ’I wonder if I shall last into the sixties....  Talk to me or I shall go crazy.  You’re a man.  You’re the stronger vessel.  Tell me when you went to pieces.’

‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—­eight—­I beg your pardon.’

’Not in the least.  I always pretend I’ve dropped a stitch of my knitting.  I count the days till the last day, then the hours, then the minutes.  Do you?’

‘I don’t think I’ve done very much else for the last—­’ said Conroy, shivering, for the night was cold, with a chill he recognised.