But he was very kind. He gave her the best things at the table, he had a bottle of slightly sweet, delicious golden wine brought out for dinner, knowing she would prefer it to the burgundy. She felt herself esteemed, needed almost.

As they took coffee in the library, there was a soft, very soft knocking at the door. He started, and called ‘Come in.’ The timbre of his voice, like something vibrating at high pitch, unnerved Gudrun. A nurse in white entered, half hovering in the doorway like a shadow. She was very good–looking, but strangely enough, shy and self–mistrusting.

‘The doctor would like to speak to you, Mr Crich,’ she said, in her low, discreet voice.

‘The doctor!’ he said, starting up. ‘Where is he?’

‘He is in the dining–room.’

‘Tell him I’m coming.’

He drank up his coffee, and followed the nurse, who had dissolved like a shadow.

‘Which nurse was that?’ asked Gudrun.

‘Miss Inglis—I like her best,’ replied Winifred.

After a while Gerald came back, looking absorbed by his own thoughts, and having some of that tension and abstraction which is seen in a slightly drunken man. He did not say what the doctor had wanted him for, but stood before the fire, with his hands behind his back, and his face open and as if rapt. Not that he was really thinking—he was only arrested in pure suspense inside himself, and thoughts wafted through his mind without order.

‘I must go now and see Mama,’ said Winifred, ‘and see Dadda before he goes to sleep.’

She bade them both good–night.

Gudrun also rose to take her leave.

‘You needn’t go yet, need you?’ said Gerald, glancing quickly at the clock.’ It is early yet. I’ll walk down with you when you go. Sit down, don’t hurry away.’

Gudrun sat down, as if, absent as he was, his will had power over her. She felt almost mesmerised. He was strange to her, something unknown. What was he thinking, what was he feeling, as he stood there so rapt, saying nothing? He kept her—she could feel that. He would not let her go. She watched him in humble submissiveness.

‘Had the doctor anything new to tell you?’ she asked, softly, at length, with that gentle, timid sympathy which touched a keen fibre in his heart. He lifted his eyebrows with a negligent, indifferent expression.

‘No—nothing new,’ he replied, as if the question were quite casual, trivial. ‘He says the pulse is very weak indeed, very intermittent—but that doesn’t necessarily mean much, you know.’

He looked down at her. Her eyes were dark and soft and unfolded, with a stricken look that roused him.

‘No,’ she murmured at length. ‘I don’t understand anything about these things.’

‘Just as well not,’ he said. ‘I say, won’t you have a cigarette?—do!’ He quickly fetched the box, and held her a light. Then he stood before her on the hearth again.