"What have you lost?" "Nothing." It was not in the bedroom. He felt in the overcoat that he had been wearing. It was not there. "Nothing. It's a matchbox of mine--must have dropped out of a pocket." "Sorry. Daresay it will turn up. Well, see you later." Craven vanished; then suddenly put his head in through the door. "Oh, I say, Dune, come in to supper to-morrow night. Home I mean. My sister's back from Dresden, and I'd like you to know her. I'm sure you'd get on." "Thanks very much, I'd like to come." Olva stood in the centre of the room, his hands clenched, his face white. He must have dropped the box in the wood. He had it on his walk, he had lit his pipe. . . . Of course they would find it. Here then was the end. Now for the first time the horror of death came upon him, filing the room, turning it black, killing the fire, the colour. His body was frozen with horror--already his throat was choking, his eyes burning. The room swung slowly round him, turning, turning. "They shan't take me. . . . They shan't take me." His face was cruel, his mouth twisted. He saw the little silver box lying there, open, exposed, upon the grass, glittering against the dull green. He turned to the window with desperate, hunted eyes. Already he fancied that he heard their steps upon the stair. He stood, his body flung back, his hands pressing upon the table. "They shan't take me. . . . They shan't take me." The door turned, slowly opened. It was Mrs. Ridge with a duster. He gave a little sigh and rolled over, tumbling back against the chair, unconscious. 3 "There, sir, now I _do_ 'ope as you'll be all right. Too much book-work, _that's_ what it is, but if a doctor----" Olva was lying in his chair now, very pale, his eyes closed. "No, thank you, Mrs. Ridge. It's all right now, thank you--quite all right. Yes, I'm ready for lunch--very silly of me." Mrs. Ridge departed to fetch the luncheon-dish from the College kitchens and to tell the porter Thompson all about it on the way. "Pore young gentleman, there 'e was as you might say white as a sheet all of a 'eap. It gave me a turn _I_ can assure you, Mr. Thompson." His lunch was untasted. It seemed to him that he had now lost all power of control. He could only face the inevitable fact of his approaching capture. The sudden discovery of the loss of the matchbox had clanged the facts about his ears with the discordant scream of closing gates. He was captured, caught irretrievably, like a rat in a trap. He did not wish to be caught like a rat in a trap. This was a free world. Air, light, colour were about him on every side. To die, fighting, on a hill-top, in a battle-field, that was one thing. To see them crowding into his room, to be dragged into a dark airless place, to be caught by the neck and throttled. . . .