“Yes. I came up with Father Ryan.”
“Oh. Do you have to go back with him?”
“I don’t have to, no.”
They looked at each other. Something came out of him and clutched at her.
“Then I’ll tell him I’m taking you back.”
“All right, but I have to have supper with Miss Addison first.”
“Well, that’s all right. I’ve only just come. I’m going to sit with Duffield for a while. I’ll wait for you at the stable.” He moved off with the air of a man who dreads with every nerve in his body what he is about to do, and disappeared behind one of the screens.
The hospital superintendent, Miss Addison, thought Valerie rather absent-minded as they took supper in her pleasant little sitting-room. And Valerie, on her side, was staggered at the apparent calmness with which the matron told her that there were three people in the building who could not possibly live a week.
IV
Dane was pacing back and forth beside the stable when she went out. He stood still when he saw her and waited for her to come up to him. He felt her life and vitality and sympathy reaching out to him. It enfolded him like a warm and gracious garment on a cold day. He made an impulsive movement and seized her hands.
“Oh, man, how can you live if you suffer like this about people?” she said, and in spite of herself a shade of criticism crept into her tone.
His raw nerves recoiled from it at once.
“Good God! You go and sit by that man and look into his eyes as I have been doing. He can’t talk except with his eyes, and he is putting the despairing questions
