She stretched out both hands to the collar box, drew it forward to the edge, and opened the lid. A shiver ran through her as she saw again the little black gun in its nest. To think she had almost forgotten it, when perhaps it was the answer to everything. Perhaps that was why it was here. Surely if she died now, here in the room, Hilary’s arms would close round her at last. And then she needn’t leave him—ever.

“Sabrina, don’t touch it—it’s loaded—it will go off—”

She laid hold of the handle firmly—cold, like a snake—and lifted the gun out of the box.

“Sabrina, you’ve got to hear me! Put it back! You’ve got to go on living—even if you seem to lose touch with me—”

Inevitably her finger found the safety catch and released it with a small click.

“But they’re right, Sabrina, I’m not good for you! You’ll grow up, you’ll live your life, and then, when it’s time, we’ll be together again. Sabrina—don’t—!”

She did not hear him. She had never heard him. She stood looking down at the gun in her hand, fearlessly now, with a sort of curiosity. Slowly the muzzle was turning in towards her body.

Caution, prudence, reason, all left him in a rising terror of losing her forever. Moving instinctively on the split second, as he had done a hundred times in his life before, he lunged across the room and knocked the gun on to the floor by sweeping his hand through hers—so that she was left staring at her empty fingers and at the gun where it lay on the carpet at the edge of the bed.

“Hilary!” she whispered, and her feverish eyes searched the room again minutely, without success.

“I had to stop you,” he said apologetically. “There is some sort of pattern. Don’t ever meddle with it.”

She threw out her hands in passionate appeal to the empty room.

“Hilary, wherever you are, you’ve got to hear me! You’ve got to come back and help me!”

“I did come back,” he said.

“Don’t let them do this to me! Don’t let them take me away! I’m safe here with you—I’m afraid to go—”

“I know, sweetheart—I know.”

“Afraid, afraid, Hilary, can’t you hear? Dreadful things can’t happen to me here—please let me stay!”

“Not like that, Sabrina—that won’t help.”

“Answer me, Hilary, you must answer! What will become of me if I leave this house? I might never feel as though you were in the same room with me again! I might get ill and die, alone! Or I might have to live till I’m eighty, without you near! Hilary, promise me that when I die you’ll be there!”

“Yes, my darling, yes—I will be there.”