Here Louis followed her, though not at once. He was relieved to see that she was not crying. And indeed she had been struggling hard in the interval to gather some steadiness.

He sat down opposite to her without a word, only making a warmer gesture than he had yet used that day, as he bent forward and brushed some grits from her skirts with his bare hand.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

It was wonderful though how his action freed her from all pettier exasperation.

“Louis,” she said in a low voice innocent of resentment, “why did you ask me to come to-day? You shouldn’t have asked me. You needn’t have. You might have told me you had changed toward me. When did you change?”

Louis stirred unhappily before speaking.

“But I haven’t changed toward you,” he replied at length “that is, not that I know of. If I’ve changed as you say, I’ve changed somehow to myself rather than to you. I don’t myself know what has gone wrong. It’s true something seems to have broken in me – just gone phut … I can’t explain.”

“You mean, now?” Joanna asked in mournful wonder – “All of a sudden, since this morning?”

“I have told you I don’t know!” He was becoming restive again. “I certainly was unaware of it before. You must know that … I wouldn’t have … as I say, I can’t explain it to myself. It’s just one of these things there’s apparently no accounting for … there seems nothing to be said …”

Truly there seemed nothing. Or if after a time there might have seemed something, it was prevented by the arrival just then from dinner of the rightful occupants of the compartment into which Joanna had drifted.

She and Louis had no choice now but to return to their own carriage where the youthful Nero, and the pretty girl and her mamma were already reinstalled. And before many minutes were gone Louis lapsed again into that disheartening, jaded sleep.

IX

They stood for a few moments on the platform at Waverley Station, chilled and uncertain. Louis had already told her that an artist friend half expected him for the night.

“You had better go to him,” said Joanna tonelessly. “I know you hate hotels, and you have a cold, besides being so tired. You had better go to him, Louis.” And she shivered in the draughty place.

Louis too was miserably chilled after his cramped doze in the train. His cold felt many degrees worse. He hesitated with his reply: and she waited, not quite hopeless yet, in spite of her own suggestion. Was it possible that he should leave her now? Was it in common kindness possible? Yet she saw the callousness of his worn and clouded face.

“But what about you?” he asked. With so simple a question did he deal out death to her, finally, unmistakably.