She looked up at him tragically. ‘Hip—‘
‘No!’ he snapped. ‘You can’t talk me out of it.’
She started to speak, stopped, bent her head. Down she bent, to hide her face on the bed.
He strode furiously up and down the room, then stood over her. His face softened. ‘Janie,’ he said, ‘help me…’
She lay very still. He knew she was listening. He said, ‘If there’s danger… if something is going to try to kill me… tell me what. At least let me know what to look for.’
She turned her head, faced the wall, so he could hear her but not see her. In a laboured voice she said, ‘I didn’t say anything will try to kill you. I said you would be killed.’
He stood over her for a long time. Then he growled. ‘All right. I will. Thanks for everything, Janie. You better go home.’
She crawled off the bed slowly, weakly, as if she had been flogged. She turned to him with such a look of pity and sorrow in her face that his heart was squeezed. But he set his jaw, looked towards the door, moved his head towards it.
She went, not looking back, dragging her feet. It was more than he could bear. But he let her go.
The bedspread was lightly rumpled. He crossed the room slowly and looked down at it. He put out his hand, then fell forward and plunged his face into it. It was still warm from her body and for an instant so brief as to be indefinable, he felt a thing about mingled breaths, two spellbound souls turning one to the other and about to be one. But then it was gone, everything was gone and he lay exhausted.