“_‘I cannot come to you—I am afraid._ _I will not come to you. There, it is said._ _Though all night long I lie awake and know_ _That you are lying waking even so:_ _And all the day you tread a lonely road_ _And come at sunset to a dark abode._ _Yet, if so be you are indeed my friend,_ _Then, at the end,_ _There is one road, a road I’ve never gone,_ _And down that road you shall not pass alone;_ _And there’s one night you’ll find me by your side—’_” He paused; and I waited for the rime that should complete the couplet: “How does it go on?” “_‘And there’s one night you’ll find me by your side—_ _. . . The night that they shall tell me you have died.’_ It’s . . . Chinese, I was told. Two or three hundred years before Homer.” I drove on, staring drowsily ahead of me at the broad, unfolding ribbon of black road and the monotonous water-meadows on either hand. The tender warmth of the little poem made me forget for a moment the bleakness of the Kennet valley in late autumn; and, after a sleepless night, the rushing wind drugged my brain. “_Though all night long I lie awake and know_ _That you are lying waking even so.” . . ._ I murmured the lines to keep myself from falling asleep. What had Barbara’s thoughts been when I lay waking the night before? Suddenly my sight was dimmed with a curtain of blood; and I stopped the car in twice its length because I could not see the road before me. If indeed I had fallen asleep, I had looked for a moment, through this red curtain, on a sun-washed verandah, where a dying man was gasping for breath. “_And there’s one night you’ll find me by your side—_ _. . . The night that they shall tell me you have died._” The vision faded before I could make out whether Eric was speaking to Barbara or listening for her voice. The unexpected jolt had flung O’Rane out of his seat; and, as he pulled himself back into place, he could hear me stopping the engine. “Is anything the matter?,” he asked. “Eric Lane’s just died.” “Good God! When?” “This moment. I . . . pulled up to avoid him,” I answered without knowing what I was saying. “He’s gone now. Poor devil! Oh, poor devil!” If I was shaken, O’Rane was in no better case: “Those lines . . . I had them from him.” “I know.” “You’d heard him . . .?” “I heard him then . . . At least I think . . .” The road was once more stretching firmly ahead of me to a belt of leafless trees. In the meadows on either side I saw deliberate cattle splashing up to their knees in muddy water. “It’s ten to two, Raney. Shall we see if we can find a place for lunch?” “That’ll wait. You’re not fit to drive any more at present. . . . You’d . . . better tell me everything, old man.” “But I’ve told you! I knew Eric was dead or dying because I had . . . I saw a letter from him quite recently. My nerves are rather jumpy.” . . . “It’ll break poor Lady Lane’s heart,” he murmured. “And it’ll be a shock for Ivy.”