She winced. Yet there had been something in her mind to say. She let it forth, but the gladness was gone. "It was as we said last night—a strange and sweet kind of rest at first. I went to sleep like a little child—drifting away so pleasantly. But it didn’t last. Something awoke me—some change. I could not have slept an hour. Since then, I have been waiting for the day." They were like two melancholy strangers meeting on a strange road, each having lost his way, debating vaguely. She ate nothing. Just as he was about to remind her, she suggested to him that he try the contents of the dish before him. He put the spoon into it and discovered that he was forced to follow each movement with his mind lest his hand stop; that he must give separate thought to each gesture, the placing of food upon her plate and upon his own, then a thought for each morsel that he lifted—a thought even to taste it. If he did not keep up the thinking, movement stopped altogether. His eyes were called to her face. The gray widened there, her eyes very large. He heard Bamban bring in the camels to the court at last. The voice of the driver with him was like a voice from the pit. Anna Erivan cleared her throat: "Are you going at once?" "Yes." "But my brother.... You see, I did not call him because every moment of sleep helps him—like this. I shall get him—" Her dismay was rending to him. "Don’t trouble. What I had to say isn’t vital. It will hold until I come back from Wampli if—" Her throat was like a flower. This that she wore at the throat was black. He could see her hand clearly and her throat. Above was enveloped in the pervading grayness, all but the eyes. Always as the face cleared, the low voice of Bamban, or the voice of that camel-driver from the pit, blurred it. Again Romney began to think of the food, morsel by morsel. One spoonful remained on his plate. It seemed as if he could never come to the end. And now he saw the tea. He drank it eagerly. That seemed to help her, too, as if something of life had come into the room—something human and grippable. She took his cup and thankfully refilled it. He drank this more slowly, because it had not cooled. In the open door was sunlight. It was not like the sun of yesterday, yet it was sunshine. This brought him a swift picture of the day’s journey, a long and full day’s passage, then nightfall. Every league, every mile, every camel-pace would take him farther away from this room.... He heard her voice. "What did you say?" he asked. "I said your face looked gray," she answered. The horror of the journey held his mind again, twelve hours in swift passage, and two more like it to Wampli—every camel-pace away from this room. She cleared her voice. He turned to her. "Your camels should have rested." "They are good," he said.