Was I? I had hardly thought what I was going to do, but I said: "Most likely, if I can manage to persuade him to come with me." Then Severn wrote: "That's right. We're both crocked up, Terry and I, and you've jolly well got to help us. You're the ministering angel. I'm the interesting mangle. The doctors think so, anyway." I laughed hysterically. Then I made inquiries about Helen, and he wrote that she and June had been cabled for from New York, where they had been on holiday. They were already on their way. All this questioning and answering took time, for he insisted on writing down everything exactly as he would have spoken it. At the last moment, when the sister had entered to indicate that I must go, I asked him if there was anything I could do, and he wrote, in large block capitals: "Yes. Come and see me again before you go to England. But don't bring Terry--it would only upset him. And also, if you've time, you might run down into the basement of the Magasins du Louvre and buy me one of their BBB pencils with cork holders." I wanted to laugh again--to burst into loud, unchecked laughter; but the sister was patiently waiting for me at the door. It was she who told me, as she led the way along the corridor to the head of the stairs, that most likely Severn would have to be wheeled about in a chair for the rest of his life. Somehow, even in my most despondent moments, I had never thought of anything so bad as that. I had pictured him dying of injuries; I had been prepared for even amputations and disfigurements; but this grim foreshadowing of death within life struck me with freezing bewilderment. And so again into the heavy-scented night. The whole visit to Severn had lasted less than half an hour and I have set down everything I can remember of it. If the result seems rather slight and scrappy, make allowance for the fact that I had spent two successive nights in a train, and was fatigued to the point of faintness. I remember standing on the kerb facing the Arc de Triomphe and wondering if I too were going to crock up; I know that I walked the whole length of the Champs Elysées down to the Place de la Concorde before deciding finally that I wasn't. At a café in the Rue Royale I fortified myself with coffee and cognac and was glad of the few moments' rest; besides, I had to make up my mind what I should tell Terry.