lla muff with a grey
Persian kitten asleep half inside it.

Eric knelt down and played with the kitten until the bedroom door opened
and Barbara hurried in.

"Glad to see me, Eric?" she whispered.

"I've--noticed you weren't here," he answered. "You're looking better,
Babs. And I like your kitten."

"I brought her up to chaperon you," she explained. "Are you going to be
bored, dining alone with me? I warned you what it would be like." She
pointed doubtfully towards a table set for two. "We put the dirty plates
on the floor, and my maid will take them away when she brings coffee.
I've only her and one kitchen-maid to keep me alive. Eric, I've been
looking forward to this most enormously. That was a sweet letter you
wrote me from Lashmar--I love the name! Lashmar Mill-House--You were
very fond of Jack, I could see. Shall we begin?"

Eric looked at the photograph on the mantel-piece before sitting down.

"He was the greatest friend I ever had," he answered wistfully. "An
unusual character. If you liked him, he could make you do anything he
pleased. . . . Did you see much of him? His sister was surprised to find
that you knew him."

Barbara finished her soup without answering. Then, as Eric took away her
empty plate, she looked up at him with a slight frown of perplexity.

"Did he never mention me to you?" she asked. "Somehow--I thought you
understood, Eric. Didn't any one else tell you? There are so many
stories about me----"

"I honestly don't know what you're referring to," said Eric, laying down
his knife and fork in perplexity.

She looked at him closely with eyebrows raised.

"When we discussed the photograph, and I asked you to find out anything
you could . . . Didn't you see that Jack meant a great deal to me?"

The colour had fled from her cheeks, and she was sitting with head bent
forward, deeply preoccupied with the food on her plate. Gazing blankly
at her, Eric tried to imagine what kind of intimacy she could have
formed with the elusive celibate who never spoke to women or discussed
them. . . .

Something was expected of him. . . .

"It never occurred to me," he said lamely. "Of course, Jack never
mentioned a word----"

"_He wouldn't_. . . . Jim knew, but _he_ wouldn't either. . . . There
was no one else to give me away. . . . I've always been afraid of saying
something in my sleep. . . . I want to _forget, forget_. . . ."

The words came out in jerks, with a sobbing struggle for breath betw