Was it an echo to him out of the past—the past that, so he had said, was just a blank that nobody remembered?
Footsteps crunched along the gravel; the latch of the side-gate was lifted up; they had gone out again into the pale, starlit lane....
III
It was past two when he came up to bed. No longer at all sleepy, I was waiting for him in the sole armchair that our room possessed; Severn's Disraeli was open on my knee, but it had taken me over an hour to read five of its most fascinating pages.
He said nothing at first, beyond apologizing for his lateness. I thought he looked worried and unsettled; he went to the window, lit a cigarette, and stood there for a moment with his back towards me.
"Sleepy?" he said at last.
"Not particularly," I replied.
"Neither am I."
Was it an invitation to talk? I wondered, but I knew that if it were he would soon repeat it more definitely.
He said, after a pause: "I don't think I shall sleep at all to-night."