"Yes, my dear?" The words came out quite simply and naturally, as she seated herself and drew her dressing-gown about her. But never did she take her eyes from his face. "I've known it a long time," went on Paul, swallowing something in his throat, and drawing himself up--"longer than I cared to confess to myself. I tried not to believe it--just as we all do; but it wasn't any good in the end. There was a ray of hope last week--something that might be done, they thought; but the ray of hope went to-day." She drew a long breath, and then set her lips tightly, and nodded. He smiled at her; almost it seemed as though he tried to laugh. Seeing that, she turned her head away swiftly, and doubled one hand, and beat it softly on her knee as she looked at the remains of the fire. He went on speaking; and it was curious that he seemed to speak of someone else. Never of himself. "They don't give you much time in anything like this," he said in a whisper. "I've got the truth out of 'em--and God knows it wanted some pulling out; these people have wrong-headed ideas of mercy. It's death, Mrs. Baffall." He spoke as though the very presence of it were in the room with them then; she glanced at him, but did not speak. "When I heard it first I--I was afraid. Life seemed so big and strong; it was all about me--throbbing and pulsing and striving--as I came out from where they'd examined me. Men were laughing and striding along, and speaking to each other--men with years of life before them; I stood in a great city, with death hard at my elbow. In quite a little time I was to leave everything behind--I was to go out into the shadows. Oh--I can tell you I was afraid!" He laughed now at that odd recollection--laughed shamefacedly. "But not now?" It was the first time she had spoken since he began; she spoke in a whisper. He shook his head. "Not for myself; the fear has gone," he said. "It will only be a sort of falling asleep. If ever I grow afraid again, it will be when I think about it in the sunlight. For I love the sunlight. It isn't for myself--but oh, my God--what of the babies?" He beat one fist softly into the palm of the other hand, and bit his lips, and looked at her wide-eyed. She felt that she had got to the very heart of the matter now; she was on surer ground. Already she looked upon the man as someone gone beyond her--someone to be spoken of with bated breath; but the children appealed to her practical mind; she probed deep down to the very source of the trouble that oppressed him. Death was a thing to be met full front; but young lives were wrapped up with the failing life of Old Paul, and he did not know what was to happen to them. "There'll be those who'll give a care to them," she suggested, with her own mind already making up to speak to Baffall about it on the morrow.