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sleep naturally. May be hard at first, but it will come.”
    A queer look on his face. Had he known then or suspected that it would come to this? Oh well, it should not be difficult. She rose to her feet with decision. She would go out now to a chemist's shop.

Destination Unknown
    III
    Hilary had always imagined that drugs were easy to buy in foreign cities. Rather to her surprise, she found that this was not so. The chemist she went to first supplied her with only two doses. For more than that amount, he said, a doctor's prescription would be advisable. She thanked him smilingly and nonchalantly and went rather quickly out of the shop, colliding as she did so with a tall, rather solemn-faced young man, who apologised in English. She heard him asking for toothpaste as she left the shop.
    Somehow that amused her. Toothpaste. It seemed so ridiculous, so normal, so everyday. Then a sharp pang pierced her, for the toothpaste he had asked for was the brand that Nigel had always preferred. She crossed the street and went into a shop opposite. She had been to four chemists' shops by the time she returned to the hotel. It had amused her a little that in the third shop the owlish young man had again appeared, once more asking obstinately for his particular brand of toothpaste which evidently was not one commonly stocked by French chemists in Casablanca.
    Hilary felt almost lighthearted as she changed her frock and made up her face before going down for dinner. She purposely went down as late as possible since she was anxious not to encounter any of her fellow travellers or the personnel of the aeroplane. That was hardly likely in any case, since the plane had gone on to Dakar, she thought that she had been the only person put off at Casablanca.
    The restaurant was almost empty by the time she came into it, though she noticed that the young Englishman with the owl-like face was just finishing his meal at the table by the wall. He was reading a French newspaper and seemed quite absorbed in it.
    Hilary ordered herself a good meal with a half bottle of wine. She was feeling a heady kind of excitement. She thought to herself, “What is this after all, but the last adventure?” Then she ordered a bottle of Vichy water to be sent up to her room and went straight up after leaving the dining room.
    The waiter brought the Vichy, uncapped it, placed it on the table, and wishing her goodnight, left the room. Hilary drew a sigh of relief. As he closed the door after him, she went to it and turned the key in the lock. She took from the drawer of the dressing table the four little packets she had obtained from the chemists, and unwrapped them. She laid the tablets out on the table and poured herself out a glass of Vichy water. Since the drugs were in tablet form, she had only to swallow them, and wash them down with the Vichy water.
    She undressed, wrapped her dressing gown round her and came back to sit by the table. Her heart beat faster. She felt something like fear now, but the fear was half fascination and not the kind of flinching that would have tempted her to abandon her plan. She was quite calm and clear about that. This was escape at last - real escape. She looked at the writing table, debating whether she would leave a note. She decided against it. She had no relations, no close or dear friends, there was nobody to whom she wished to say goodbye. As for Nigel, she had no wish to burden him with useless remorse even if a note from her would have achieved that object. Nigel would read presumably in the paper that a Mrs. Hilary Craven had died of an overdose of sleeping tablets in Casablanca. It would probably be quite a small paragraph. He would accept it at its face value. “Poor old Hilary,” he would say, “bad luck” - and it might be that, secretly, he would be rather relieved. Because she guessed that she was, slightly, on Nigel's conscience, and he was a man who wished to feel comfortable with himself.
    Already Nigel seemed