“Come along,” he said to Roden, with averted eyes. “It is all over. There is nothing more for us to do here.”
With a backward glance towards the bed, Roden followed his companion, out of the room into the adjoining apartment where the nurse was sitting, and where their coats and hats lay on the bed. Von Holzen spoke to the woman in German.
“So!” she answered, with a mild interest, and folded her paper.
The two men went out into the keen air together, and did not look towards each other or speak. Perhaps they knew that if there is any difficulty in speaking of a subject it is better to keep silence. They crossed the sandy space between this cottage and the others grouped round the factory like tents around their headquarters. One of these huts was Von Holzen's—a three-roomed building where he worked and slept. Its windows looked out upon the factory, and commanded the only entrance to the railed enclosure within which the whole colony was confined. It was Von Holzen's habit to shut himself within his cottage for days together, living there in solitude like some crustacean within its shell. At the door he turned, with his fingers on the handle.
“You must not worry yourself about this,” he said to Roden, with averted eyes. “It cannot be helped, you know.”
“No; I know that.”
“And of course we must keep our own counsel. Good night, Roden.”
“Of course. Good night, Von Holzen.”
And Percy Roden passed through the gateway, walking slowly across the dunes towards his own house; while Von Holzen watched him from the window of the little three-roomed cottage.