Harding's jaw set firm as his teeth gritted.
The memory of her white, drawn face as he saw her lying on the ground outside the hut; the memory of her desolate wail for him to take her away from the horror of her surroundings; the memory of her patient care of the two injured men, injured, perhaps, by the "rat" who had ruined her life and his; the memory of her as he had first known her, jostled one another in his brain.
Better, a thousand times better, if Eustace were dead.
The doctor, looking out of the next hut, saw him still standing staring into the night.
"How's the old man? Restless?" he asked as he came over.
The voice brought Harding back from the clouds—the thunder-clouds, towards which he was drifting.
"I'm just going in," he answered.
The doctor followed him to the door. Dudgeon lay breathing peacefully in a deep sleep.
"You can roll up in that blanket and make yourself as comfortable as possible—I don't think he'll awaken till the morning," the doctor said in a low tone when he had crossed to the bunk where Dudgeon lay and looked at him. "I must get back to my man."
He went out of the hut without waiting for a reply and Harding made no attempt to follow him, but spread the blanket on the floor and lay down upon it.