"But you've done the book," said Sybil again. The larch and the garden beyond were misty to her eyes. She set her teeth. He must be comforted. Her own agony--that could be dealt with later. "I've ridden myself with the curb," he said. "I thought it all out--proper food, proper sleep, proper exercise. I wouldn't play the fool with the last chance; and I pulled it off. I wrote the book in four months; and every night, when I went to sleep, I wondered whether I should ever wake to go on with the book. But I did wake, and then I used to leap up and thank God, and set to work; and I've done it. The book will live--every one says it will. I shan't have lived for nothing." "Rupert," she said, "dear Rupert!" "Thank you," he said forlornly; "you're very kind." And he drew his limp hand from hers, and leaned his elbows on the grass and his chin on his hands. "Oh, Rupert, why didn't you write and tell me?" "What was the use of making you sad? You were always sorry for maimed things--even the worms the gardener cut in two with his spade." She was struggling with a growing desire to scream and shriek, and to burst out crying and tear the grass with her hands. He no longer loved her--that was the lesser evil. She could have borne that--have borne anything. But he was going to die! The intensity of her belief that he was going to die caught her by the throat. She defended herself instinctively. "I don't believe it," she said. "Don't believe what?" "That you're going to die." He laughed; and when the echo of that laugh had died away in the quiet garden, she found that she could no longer even say that she did not believe. Then he said: "I am going to die, and all the values of things have changed places. But I have done something: I haven't buried my talent in a napkin. Oh, my Pretty, go away, go away! You make a fool of me again! I had almost forgotten how to be sorry that you couldn't love me. Go away, go away! Go, go!" He threw out his hands, and they lay along the grass. His face went down into the tangled green, and she saw his shoulders shaken with sobs. She dragged herself along the grass till she was close to him; then she lifted his shoulders, and drew his head on to her lap, and clasped her arms round him. "My darling, my dear, my own!" she said. "You're tired, and you've thought of nothing but your hateful book--your beautiful book, I mean--but you do love me really. Not as I love you, but still you do love me. Oh, Rupert, I'll nurse you, I'll take care of you, I'll be your slave; and if you have to die, I shall die too, because there'll be nothing left for me to do for you." He put an arm round her. "It's worth dying to hear that," he said, and brought his face to lie against her waist. "But you shan't die. You must come back to London with me now--this minute. The best opinion----"