“You must go back to your shelter.”
“Then you must, too.”
He followed her to the lamp-house.
“I have a key. That is a precaution, in case anything happens to Mr. Gillies. During the war we had to be careful.”
“Your brother was with the Canadians?”
“Yes. He was killed in the spring of 1916, and since then I never mention the word explosion where my old father can hear it.”
“Is your mother living?”
“No. She died the day after Horatio died.”
He asked no more questions, but looked round to see what he could do to make her comfortable. The interior of the sentry-box was painted a pale apple-green, much like the bloom produced by the weathering of niccolite, and that was why he had not noticed her at first, for she wore a soft sweater of the same color. He quickly espied a crate that once had held a lamp, and spread his coat over it and made her sit down.
Then he sat down at her feet, close to the open doorway, and minutes went by with no other sound than the drumming on the roof and the soft muttering in the cloud that surrounded them. At last he heard a dreamy voice.