"We've got too much to say," Cosgrave broke out at last, with a painful effort, "too much ground to cover—and I dare say we don't want to cover it. If we'd written—but I never heard from you after that one letter—after Miss Christine's death."
"I was ill," Stonehouse explained, eating tranquilly. "I got through my finals with a temperature which would have astonished my examiners, and then I went to pieces altogether. Had to go into hospital myself. A nervous breakdown. Three months I had of it. They were very decent to me, and when I came out they got me a berth as ship's doctor on one of the smaller transatlantic liners. I got hold of things again and pulled them my way. But I didn't want to look back. My illness had made a definite break—I wanted to keep free."
Cosgrave nodded. He had been playing with his food, and now a look of disgust and weariness came into his thin face.
"I can understand that. I suppose it would have been better if I'd left well alone, and not written at all."
"It wouldn't have made much difference," Stonehouse said: "A week or two. Sooner or later we'd have run into one another. People who've been at school together always seem to. And you and I especially."
"I don't know. I was always a poor specimen—I never meant much to you."
Stonehouse looked up at him and smiled. This time it was an unmistakable smile and rather charming, like a warm line of light falling across his face.
"I was awfully glad to get your letter," he said. "I'd begun to worry rather."
Cosgrave flushed up.
"That's—that's about the nicest thing that's happened to me for a long time. I'd probably cry with pleasure—only I don't seem able to feel much anyway. It's those damn bugs, I suppose!"