"I'm not ill and I'm not mad. Please shut that door."
He shut it.
"Won't you sit down?"
She smiled and sat down on his bed, helpless and heedless of herself. Prothero sat on the edge of a packing-case and gazed at her, still with his air of seeing nothing at all remarkable in her behaviour.
Her eyes wandered from him and were caught by the fantastic disorder of the room. On his writing-table a revolver, a microscope, and a case of surgical instruments lay in a litter of manuscripts. A drawer, pulled from its chest, stood on end by the bedside; the contents were strewn at her feet. With a pang of reminiscence she saw there the things that he had worn, the thin, shabby garments of his poverty; and among them a few new things bought yesterday for his journey. An overcoat lay on the bed beside her. He had not had anything like that before. She put out her hand and felt the stuff.
"It ought to have had a fur lining," she said, and began to cry quietly.
He rose and came to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Her sobbing ceased suddenly. She looked up at him and was still, under his touch.
"You don't want to go," she said. "Why are you going?"
"Because I have to. It's the only thing, you see, there is to do."
"If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have to. If you die out there it will be my doing."