‘No,’ he said, ‘we’ve never had much illness in the house, either — not till father.’ He seemed to meditate a while. Then looking down at her, with strangely communicative blue eyes, that filled her with dread, he continued: ‘It’s something you don’t reckon with, you know, till it is there. And then you realise that it was there all the time — it was always there — you understand what I mean? — the possibility of this incurable illness, this slow death.’

He moved his feet uneasily on the marble hearth, and put his cigarette to his mouth, looking up at the ceiling.

‘I know,’ murmured Gudrun: ‘it is dreadful.’

He smoked without knowing. Then he took the