Ernie went straight back to 72. The room showed every sign of a hasty departure. The floor was littered; the drawers open and still half full of clothes. Under the dressing-table were boots and shoes, on it a pair of hair-brushes, a case of studs, and the lesser paraphernalia of a man's toilet. It was clear that the late occupant had stuffed a few things into his suit-case and bolted. The dressing-room door was shut. Ernie went to it and listened. There was no sound within. "Ruth," he called gently, and opened. She was lying across the bed in her simple print-gown as though she had been felled. It was clear that she had entered the room and been faced with--emptiness. Her eyes were shut, and her face swam pale as the moon and still in the black circle of her hair. One foot had lost its shoe, and dangled black-stockinged and pathetic over the bed. In her hand, listlessly held, was a piece of crumpled paper--as it might have been her death-warrant. She did not seem to breathe. At first Ernie thought that she was dead, so wan she was, so quiet, so unaware. He did not mind very much, because he had died too; and they were together still, and closer than they had ever been. Quietly he knelt beside her. "Ruth," he said, and kissed the hand that lay limp at her side. She stirred beneath his touch. "It's all right, Ruth," he whispered. She opened her eyes. They lay like pools of beauty, dark in her white face, and fringed with black. They spoke to him in the silence, appealing to him. They drew him, they undid him, they purged him by their suffering of all sin, lifting him into a white heaven, where was no stain of earth, no discord, no breaking despair. He smiled at her through his tears. "It's all right, Ruth," he repeated. She laid her hand on his in loveliest trust. "Goo away, Ernie," she sighed. "I just ca'a'n't a-bear it," and her eyelids closed again. He rose to his feet. The window was open, and the bit of crumpled paper she had been holding in her hand was tossing about the floor. He picked it up unconsciously and went out. It was not till some time later that he glanced at it casually before throwing it away and saw it was a ten-pound note. CHAPTER XLIII THE EBB-TIDE Three days later Ernie met in the hall of the Hotel a man he had known and disliked in the Regiment in India. The two shook hands, Ernie grinning feebly. He was not so keen about the Regiment as he had been a few months before. "What you doin here then, Mooney?" he asked. "I've come for Captain Royal's heavy baggage," the other answered. "Say, which was his room?" "I'll show you," said Ernie, and took him up. Ruth helped in the packing. Ernie, who came and went throughout the morning, was amazed at her. Her heart was being eaten away; and yet she might have been packing for a stranger, so calm was she, so methodical and self-oblivious.