room at this hour, and if he did, he went out again as soon
as he saw that her eyes were shut.

Probably he meant to say something horrible about India; she had been
expecting it for some time. The report on Tibet was finished, and he
could let his staff work go when he liked.

He stood at the foot of her couch and looked at her curiously. Estelle
could feel his eyes on her; she wondered if he noticed how thin she
was, and how transparent her eyelids were. Every fiber in her body was
aware of her desire to impress him with her frailty. She held it before
him like a banner.

"Estelle," he said. When he spoke she winced.

"Yes, dear," she murmured hardly above a whisper.

"Would you mind opening your eyes?" he suggested. "I've got something I
want to talk over with you, and I really can't talk to a door banged in
my face."

"I'm so sorry," she said meekly; "I'm afraid I'm almost too exhausted to
talk, but I'll try to listen to what you have to say."

"Thanks," said Winn. He paused as if, after all, it wasn't easy to
begin, even in the face of this responsiveness. She thought he looked
rather odd. His eyes had a queer, dazed look, as if he had been drinking
heavily or as if somebody had kicked him.

"Well," she asked at last, "what is it you want to talk about? Suspense
of any kind, you know, is very bad for my heart."

"I beg your pardon," he said. "It was only that I thought I'd better
mention I am going to Davos."

"Davos!" She opened her eyes wide now and stared at him. "That snow
place?" she asked, "full of consumptives? What a curious idea! I never
have been able to understand how people can care to go there for sport.
It seems to me rather cruel; but, then, I know I am specially sensitive
about that kind of thing. Other people's pain weighs so on me."

"I didn't say I was going there for sport," Winn answered in the same
peculiar manner. He sat down and began to play with a paper-cutter on
his knee. "As a matter of fact, I'm not," he went on. "I've crocked one
of my lungs. They seem to think I've got to go. It's a great nuisance."

It was curious the way he kept looking at her, as if he expected
something. He couldn't have told exactly what he expected himself. He
was face to face with a new situation; he wasn't exactly frightened, but
he had a feeling that he would like very much to know how he ought to
meet it. He had often been close to death--but he had never somehow
thought of dying, he wasn't clo