We felt as if the last links that tied us to our fellows were being broken as she laid aside each relic of Duncan’s visit. We were outcast indeed.

‘You’re looking white and tired,’ I told her. ‘Hadn’t you better rest?’

She moved about the cave, putting out her hands to set things in their proper places; she moved like an automaton. Her face was white and tired.

She let her hands fall by her side.

‘I can’t rest,’ she said in a small voice.

‘You must rest,’ I answered.

‘If I bide still my mind torments me,’ she cried. ‘The only hope I have of peace is when I work. Oh, Hugh! I can’t get Duncan out of my mind. He’ll never come back! He knows he’ll never come back, never no more!’

‘A man must go the way set for him,’ I muttered.

She looked at me and did not speak.

‘Day and night,’ she said drearily, ‘day and night I think of him and all folk. Can’t you see them, Hugh!’ she cried hysterically, ‘with their faces to the sky, waiting—and hunger killing them, no strength left to move but falling down, lying on the ground with their faces to the sky, waiting—’

‘Hush, my dear,’ I whispered, going near her; ‘what use is it to think like that? It’ll send us mad if we let such thoughts prey on us.’

‘Oh, but I think I am going mad, often and often I think the thoughts of my head will break my reason,’ she said with horrid clarity. Her voice was clear and reasonable but her face was twisted with pain and her eyes were like those of a hurt brute in a snare. As I watched her the pupils of her eyes contracted and her eyes grew hard and shallow with fear.

‘Terry!’ I implored, ‘Terry! for pity’s sake—’

I could scarcely find breath to voice my prayer to her. Fear choked my breath and laid harsh fingers on my pulse.

‘I’d die without you,’ I managed to say. I began to laugh, and turned silent in the middle of my laughter, listening appalled to the false merriment of my noisy voice. I put my hands on her cheeks, her cheeks were cold like ice.

‘It’s you, really you,’ I breathed. ‘Terry, don’t you know me, this is Hugh! Terry! Terry!’