“I think so,” I said. “Yes.”
I looked into the room, avoiding those eyes. The lay sister, a pair of horn spectacles on her nose, and without a sign of interest in us, was mending the heel of a black woollen stocking, one end of which lay coiled in a black tin box. I couldn’t somehow look at Napier just then. That, you see, was the first hint I had of the thing, and though it was no more than a hint, it tore at one. The look in Napier’s eyes, I mean. The man’s heart was in his eyes....
“Look here,” he said sharply, “I don’t understand this. What? I mean, I’d no idea it was....”
“I don’t know anything,” I said, “except just that she’s ill.” We stared at each other.
“As ill,” I said, “as can be.”
“Oh,” he said. His eyes on me, not seeing me, he pushed past me through the doorway. And when I saw his face again, I was appalled. It was lost, abandoned, terribly unaware of everything but fear, it was enchanted by fear. He simply didn’t care but about one thing....
“Haven’t seen her,” he said, and scowled at me. Not that he had, at that moment, the faintest idea who I was.
“Here, a cigarette,” I said.
He stared at it in his fingers. He crushed it....
“Haven’t seen her for nearly a year,” he said in a rush, and stopped abruptly, seemed to realise me, scowled. “I say, what is it? Pneumonia or something? What?”