And now, as if she were afraid lest he should see too much, as if somehow his seeing it would sharpen the perilous edge she stood on, would wind up to the pitch of agony her tense feeling of it all, Winny suddenly became evasive. She found her subterfuge in stark matter of fact. "You haven't had any supper," she said. "No more have you." "I don't want anything." "I'm sure _I_ don't. But you must. You'll be ill, Winny, if you don't." White-faced and famished, they kept it up, both struck by the indecency of eating in the house of sorrow. Then for his sake she gave in, and he for hers. "If you will, I will," she said. "That's right," said he. And together helping each other, they filled the kettle and set it on the fire to boil, moving in silence and with soft footsteps, as in the house where death was. And together they sat down to the table and forced themselves to eat a little, each for the sake of the other, encouraging each other with such difficult, broken speech as mourners use. They behaved in all ways as if the ghost of a dead Violet sat in her old place, facing Ranny. The feeling, embraced by each of them with the most profound sincerity, was that Ranny's bereavement was irreparable, supreme. Each was convinced with an inassailable and immutable conviction that the thing that had happened was, for each of them, the worst that could happen. Half through the meal he got up suddenly and left her. He was seized with violent sickness, such sickness as he had never yet known, and would have believed impossible. The sounds of his bodily anguish reached her from the room above. They stirred her emotion to a passion of helpless, agonizing pity. If she could only go up to him and put her hand on his forehead, and do things for him! But she couldn't; and she felt poignantly that if she did Ranny somehow wouldn't like it. So, as there was nothing she could do for him, she laid her head down on her arms and wept. She raised it suddenly, like a guilty thing, and dashed the tears from her eyes, as if she were angry with them for betraying her. Ranny had recovered and was coming downstairs again. As he came in he saw at once what she had been doing. "You've been crying, Winny?" She said nothing. "I wouldn't if I were you," he said. "There's no need." She rose and faced him bravely, for there were things that must be thought of. "What are you going to do, Ranny?" she said. "Nothing. What is there to be done?" "Well--" She paused, breathing painfully. "Look here, Winny, you're dead-beat and you must go home to bed. Do you know it's past ten?" She drew herself up. "I'm not going." "You must, dear, I'm afraid." He smiled, and the smile and his white face made her heart ache. Also they made her more determined. "You must have somebody. You can't be left like this all by yourself. Do you think I can go and leave you, when you're ill and all?"