“Do you want it back under the pillow?”

“Hang it over a chair.  Or, better still, put all my clothes in the trunk.  They litter up the room.  The key is in my trousers.”

This business over, she returned to the bedside with the key.  She felt a little ashamed of herself, a bit of a hypocrite.  Every article in the trunk was fully known to her, through a recounting of the list by the doctor.  To hand the key back in silence was like offering a lie.

“Put it under my pillow,” he said.

Immediately she had spoken of the loose button he knew that henceforth he must show no concern over the disposition of that coat.  He must not in any way call their attention to it.  He must preserve it, however, as they preserved the Ark of the Covenant.  It was his redemption, his ticket out of hell—­that blue-serge coat.  To witness this girl sewing on a loose button, flopping the coat about on her knees, tickled his ironic sense of humour; and laughter bubbled into his throat.  He smothered it down with such a good will that the reaction set his heart to pounding.  The walls rocked, the footrail of the bed wavered, and the girl’s head had the nebulosity of a composite photograph.  So he shut his eyes.  Presently he heard her voice.

“I must tell you,” she was saying.  “We went through your belongings.  We did not know where to send ... in case you died.  There was nothing in the pockets of the coat.”

“Don’t worry about that.”  He opened his eyes again.

“I wanted you to know.  There is nobody, then?”

“Oh, there is an aunt.  But if I were dying of thirst, in a desert, I would not accept a cup of water at her hands.  Will you read to me?  I am tired; and the sound of your voice makes me drowsy.”

Half an hour later she laid aside the book.  He was asleep.  She leaned forward, her chin in her palms, her elbows on her knees, and she set her gaze upon his face and kept it there in dreamy contemplation.  Supposing he too wanted love and his arms were as empty as hers?

Some living thing that depended upon her.  The doll she had never owned, the cat and the dog that had never been hers:  here they were, strangely incorporated in this sleeping man.  He depended upon her, for his medicine, for his drink, for the little amusement it was now permissible to give him.  The knowledge breathed into her heart a satisfying warmth.

At noon the doctor himself arrived.  “Go to lunch,” he ordered Ruth.  He wanted to talk with the patient, test him variously; and he wanted to be alone with him while he put these tests.  His idea was to get behind this sustained listlessness.  “How goes it?” he began, heartily.  “A bit up in the world again; eh?”

“Why did you bother with me?”

“Because no human being has the right to die.  Death belongs to God, young man.”

“Ah.”  The tone was neutral.

“And had you been the worst scoundrel unhung, I’d have seen to it that you had the same care, the same chance.  But don’t thank me; thank Miss Enschede.  She caught the fact that it was something more than strong drink that laid you out.  If they hadn’t sent for me, you’d have pegged out before morning.”