“No; not just comin’ and goin’. She’s—she’s kind o’ ’ere all the time, only sometimes I ain’t lookin’.” His face became alight. “There she is now—and a great long street be’ind ’er. No, it ain’t a street; it’s just all lovely-like, and Lizzy with ’er neck as straight as a walkin’-stick—and not a drinkin’-woman no more she don’t look—it’s kind o’ beautiful like, Slim, only—only I can’t make ye understand.” Sighing fretfully over his inability to explain, he lapsed into that state of which I never was sure whether it was sleep or unconsciousness. The coma lasted for a great part of the night. Sending the nurse to lie down, I sat and watched, chiefly because I had too much on my mind and in my heart to want to go to bed. Every two or three hours Cantyre stole in, in his dressing-gown, finding nothing he could do. Once or twice I was tempted to ask him what he thought of Christian’s talk, but, fearing to break the spell it might have wrought in him, I refrained. He himself didn’t mention it, nor did he seem to know that I had observed his impulsive, shaking hands. On one of the occasions when he was with me Lovey opened his eyes suddenly, beginning to murmur something we couldn’t understand. “What is it, old chap?” Cantyre questioned, bending over him and listening. But Lovey was already articulating brokenly. It took two or three repetitions, or attempts at repetition, for Cantyre to be in a position to interpret. “What’s he trying to say?” I inquired. Cantyre pretended to arrange the bottles on the table beside the bed so as not to have to look at me. “He says, or he’s doing his best to say, ‘I didn’t say nothink but what was for everybody’s good.’” It was on my lips to retort, “Perhaps he didn’t.” I left that, however, for Cantyre, who went back to his rooms without comment. He returned in the small hours of the morning, and once more we sat, one on one side of the bed and the other on the other, in what was practically silence. All I could say of it was that it had become a sympathetic silence. Why it was sympathetic I didn’t know: but the unclassified perceptions told me that it was. When Lovey opened his eyes again it was with the air of not having been asleep or otherwise away from us. “I saved ye, Slim, didn’t I?” “Yes, Lovey, old man, you did.” “Kep’ straight so as you would keep straight too?” “Yes, Lovey.” “Ye’d never ’a’ done it if it ’adn’t been for me?” “No, Lovey.” “And I’d never ’a’ gone away from ye, Slim. I was just a—a-frightenin’ of you. I didn’t mean no ’arm at all, I didn’t.” “I know, Lovey.” He fixed his glazing eyes upon me as he said, “I told ye my name wasn’t Lovey, didn’t I?” “No, but that doesn’t matter.” “No, that doesn’t matter now. We’re fellas together, so what’s the diff?... I don’t care where we sleeps to-night, so long as you’re there, sonny.... Greeley’s Slip is good enough for mine, if I can snuggle up to you, like.... Ye don’t mind, do ye?” I put my arm round his shoulder, raising him.