ill fearing and wondering.

He supposed he was a coward; he could not help it.

It was after twelve o'clock when at last he went home. He went because
he suddenly remembered they had left George in his charge, and while
there was little he could do for Marie, he could at least be faithful
to that trust. He came back shivering as he had gone out; and as he
fitted his latchkey with cold fingers into the lock he heard the
newborn infant's wail.

The nurse looked out into the corridor at the sound of his entrance;
she raised her finger, enjoining silence, and smiled. She was the same
nurse who had helped to usher baby George into the world, and who had
been so serenely certain that they would send for her again.

She vanished once more into Marie's room.

Osborn crept along the corridor and took off his boots; he was tired
out, but still he felt no hunger. Had he been hungry he would have
somehow thought it an act of criminal grossness to forage for food.
There was none to attend to him, for Mrs. Amber, having waited to
reassure herself of her daughter's safety, had been obliged to take
the last Tube train home since there was not room for her at the flat.
He was about to undress when the nurse came along the corridor and
tapped at his door.

He knew what she had come for. Once again, with that air of lase
cheerfulness she summoned him to his wife's bedside, and once again he
stood there looking down upon Marie as she lay there, quiet and worn.
Her quietness was the most striking thing about her. She looked at him
steadily and remotely, as if he were a stranger, but with less
interest; there was even a little hostility about her regard. It
seemed a long while ago since he had fallen beside her bed and wept
with her over the catastrophic forces of Nature; they were both ages
older; as if a fog had drifted between them, their hearts were
obscured from each other. Generations and generations of battle, so
old as to be timeless, marked the ground between them.

He spoke hesitatingly, saying:

"How do you feel, dear?"

"I'm--glad it's over."

"So'm I."

"You managed to escape?"

He looked at her hastily, a little red creeping over his pallid face.
She spoke almost as to a deserter. "I couldn't have done any good," he
said.

She smiled and closed her eyes, as though against him. It was not a
natural smile, it drew her lips tight.

"What could I do?" he asked her pleadingly.

She opened her eyes again and look