comforting to find some one who can talk sense! It's not always
the same date, is it?'

'What difference would that make?' He unbuttoned his ulster with a jerk.
'You're a sane woman. Can't you see the wicked--wicked--wicked' (dust
flew from the padded arm-rest as he struck it) unfairness of it? What
have I done?'

She laid her large hand on his shoulder very firmly.

'If you begin to think over that,' she said, 'you'll go to pieces and be
ashamed. Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine. Only be quiet--be quiet,
lad, or you'll set me off!' She made shift to soothe him, though her
chin trembled.

'Well,' said he at last, picking at the arm-rest between them, 'mine's
nothing much, of course.'

'Don't be a fool! That's for doctors--and mothers.'

'It's Hell,' Conroy muttered. 'It begins on a steamer--on a stifling hot
night. I come out of my cabin. I pass through the saloon where the
stewards have rolled up the carpets, and the boards are bare and hot
and soapy.'

'I've travelled too,' she said.

'Ah! I come on deck. I walk down a covered alleyway. Butcher's meat,
bananas, oil, that sort of smell.'

Again she nodded.

'It's a lead-coloured steamer, and the sea's lead-coloured. Perfectly
smooth sea--perfectly still ship, except for the engines running, and
her waves going off in lines and lines and lines--dull grey. All this
time I know something's going to happen.'

'I know. Something going to happen,' she whispered.

'Then I hear a thud in the engine-room. Then the noise of machinery
falling down--like fire-irons--and then two most awful yells. They're
more like hoots, and I know--I know while I listen--that it means that
two men have died as they hooted. It was their last breath hooting out
of them--in most awful pain. Do you understand?'

'I ought to. Go on.'

'That's the first part. Then I hear bare feet running along the
alleyway. One of the scalded men comes up behind me and says quite
distinctly, "My friend! All is lost!" Then he taps me on the shoulder
and I hear him drop down dead.' He panted and wiped his forehead.

'So that is your night?' she said.

'That is my night. It comes every few weeks--so many days after I get
what I call sentence. Then I begin to count.'

'Get sentence? D'you mean _this_?' She half closed her eyes, drew a
deep breath, and shuddered. '"Notice" I call it. Sir John thought it was
all lies.'

She had unpinned her hat and thrown it on the seat opposite, showing the
i