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 at night, lying in the little room beside hers, that he seemed to recover, from his impressions of the day, a memory of tension in Jill, too, that only her smiling calm kept from being apparent when they were together. And, thinking of it at night, it became very strange to him to remember that she had never asked him one question about the Manoir and its inmates. It was as if her illness had washed from her mind the memory of what had too much discomposed it. Marthe Ludérac's story had too much discomposed her. That was what it came to. So Graham, lying awake at night, would tell himself.

Then, one evening, after tea, Amélie came up and said that Mademoiselle Ludérac was below and asked if she might see Madame.

It was hateful to Graham; it made him hate himself, to find that helplessly, involuntarily, he had started to his feet. He could not see her. That was the first thought that had come to him; before any thought of Jill. He could not see her. She would be hateful to see. Disgust and terror seemed evenly mingled in his impulse of flight. But Jill was looking over at him, strangely looking, and she said: 'Don't go. Stay. I want you to see her, too.'

The quiet and urgency of her voice reminded him of the afternoon when she had asked him to see Marthe Ludérac on the island, and he now wondered whether that had been to test his strength, and her own; to test the reality left to them. He stood still and leaned back against the mantelpiece. He stood in shadow so, for