Without moving from his mat, Geoffrey stretched a thin hand towards the fiddle-case that lay beside his pillow, opened it noiselessly and took out the Amati; then, with his haggard eyes still fixed on the reclining figure opposite him, he drew a long sobbing chord out of the strings, and began a nocturne of Chopin's, delicatest melody played with exquisite delicacy, the very music of sleep and dreams. "I am talking to her," he murmured to himself softly; "across the great continent, across the great sea, over burning desert and tropical wilderness, my voice is calling to her. I am telling her the story of my heart, as I used to tell her in the dear days at Discombe, the dear unheeding days, when my bow talked to her half in sport, when I hardly knew if the wild thrill that ran along my veins meant a lifelong love." The music served as a lullaby for Allan, and it soothed Geoffrey, whose brain had been over-charged with hideous fancies, as he sat up in his bed, listening to the ticking of the watch that hung against the wall, and looking at his slumbering companion. Darkest thoughts, thoughts of what might happen if this throbbing brain of his were to lose its balance. He had been thinking of the narrow wall between reason and unreason, and of the madness that may come out of one absorbing idea. Where did a passionate love like his end and monomania begin? Was it well that they two should be alone together, with only these black beasts of burden? He thought of one of the men, a grinning good-natured-looking animal, the best of their porters, of whom it was told that setting out on a journey with one of his wives he arrived at his destination without her. It might have been his honeymoon. He explained that wild beasts had eaten the lady; but it was known afterwards that he had killed her and chopped her up on the way. Anger, jealousy, convenience? Who knows? The man was a good servant, and nobody cared about this episode in his career. Was murder so easy, then? Easy to do, easy to forget?