baby’s feeding-bottle without getting boozed?  I knew you’d like to know that.  Oh, wasn’t I a fool to think you wanted to tie me to your apron strings?  I’ve got to neglect you for a bit now.  I’ve got to run on without you, dear.  Thank God you’re not the sort to get huffy about it, and want me dancing attendance on you.  A man with a man’s job to do can’t have time for the softness of women about him:  he can’t stop to look to right or left!  But when I’m in Harley Street—­well there!  No more decayed castles or wooden huts for you!

“I’m aching to see you, Marcella.  It’s the Mater’s birthday on Easter Sunday, so I’m running down to see her on Saturday.  I shall travel back by that train that leaves Euston at midnight on Sunday.  It’s great to be away from you, because it’s so great to come back.”

The doctor looked at her as he put the letter down, and blew his nose and polished his glasses.

“Two or three years ago I’d have been sick to think I was only the bridge to carry him over—­to his job.  But now—­” She smiled a little, wondering why he should talk to her of the softness of women, that he must dispense with for a while; and Kraill had seen her hard, and asked her to be courageous for him!

After the doctor had gone Andrew came in, warm and rosy from his bath.  He had had a glorious day on the beach with Wullie; he scrambled into Jean’s arms to be carried to bed, because they had forgotten his slippers and his feet were cold.

“Night, night, mummy,” he said.  “Inve morning I shan’t wake you up, ’cos I’m going to see the boats come in at five!  An’ Jean’s putting oatcake in my pocket—­like a man—!”

He went off, laughing.  After he was in bed, she heard him singing for a long time until his voice droned away to drowsiness.

She lay silent and motionless.  Aunt Janet came in.  She took up the hypodermic syringe impassively.  Marcella shook her head.

“No.  I want to think to-night.  Louis’s coming on Monday.  I’ve to think of some way of not letting him know how ill I am, because of his work,” she said.  “But will you put pencil and paper where I can get it?”

“You’ll not be writing letters to-night, Marcella?” said Aunt Janet.

“No.  I’m going to make my will,” she laughed.  “I’ve only Louis and Andrew to leave—­”

Her aunt kissed her and turned away.  Through the open window came the soft roar of the sea.  It was very still to-night; the moon shone across it, but that she could not see:  she had seen it so often that it was there in her imagination.  On Ben Grief the shadows lay inky in the silver light.  She looked at the syringe, and then at the tabloids, and sighed a little; the pain was a thing tearing and burning; several times she tried to begin to write and had to lie back with closed eyes floating away on a sea of horror.  Several times her hand quivered towards the tabloids and came back to the pencil.  The shadows seemed to jostle each other about the room.  Kraill’s eyes shone out of them for an instant, blue and impelling.  She got a grip on herself and wrote, a word at a time, making each letter with proud precision: