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seeing them now for the first time. Their Celtic gray was startling against his black lashes and brows. Whether he saw her at all, it was impossible to say. His face was set in a stiff mask of suffering, but the eyes and forehead were not contracted as if physical pain had been behind them. She thought that he must be experiencing some kind of hallucination; but the sight of his distress conquered her professional instinct to observe more. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and, finding his good hand under the blanket, took it in both her own.
    “It’s all right,” she said, leaning over him. “Everything’s all right. There’s nothing there.”
    He drew in a long, gasping breath; she saw the Iris of the eyes contract, trying to focus, then relax into blindness again. His fingers, at first loose and unresponsive, closed round hers and tightened, slowly, into a crushing grip. She could feel the bones of her hand grinding together, and began seriously to wonder if he would succeed in fracturing one of them. Too much interested to be fully conscious of the pain, she sat watching his face. The fixed stare was leaving it and his breathing was easier. Presently his grip on her hand became something that could be comfortably tolerated. She was about to withdraw herself when she saw that he was trying to speak.
    At last he said, with difficulty, “Where are you?”
    “Here. Can’t you see me now?”
    “Yes.” But his eyes were looking through and beyond her. She had known people before (but they had been children) who would not admit that they could not see.
    “I’ve opened the window,” she said. “Look, it’s light.”
    He narrowed his eyes for a moment as if aware that some endeavor was expected of him; then he closed them, and tightened his hand a little on hers. She saw that his face was damp with sweat, and wiped it with a towel. He turned toward her, and appeared to sleep.
    Time was passing, and she had a good deal to do; but she thought she would stay a little longer. In this twilight phase, which might be short, observation might be interesting. His face had lost the look of sculptured impersonality it had had when his unconsciousness had been complete, and had now a kind of forlorn peace, like an exhausted child’s. They had dressed him in faded flannel pajamas, rebandaged his head, and slung up his arm to fix his collarbone. He looked very neat and clean and young.
    A spasm crossed his eyes and forehead, so sudden and sharp that the pain seemed to move visibly over them. She thought that to slacken the bandage might help, and unpinned the end. He reached up a hand in resistance; she put it firmly aside,
    “What the hell are you playing at,” he muttered, “mucking about?” And, more irritably, when she continued, “Don’t shift that, you fool, I’m on in two minutes.”
    She said, “I’ll only loosen it; it’s too tight.”
    “What’s the idea? I always do myself. If he wants it done straight, he can put in someone else. I tell you—”
    “Sh-sh. It’s all right. Quiet now.” She had finished, and laid her hand restrainingly on his forehead.
    His face relaxed. “It’s you,” he said; and then, with the exaggerated feeling of delirium, “I’m very, very sorry. Terribly sorry. Stay with me now. I lost you. I’m very sorry. Let me stay here. I’ll hold you, can I? Don’t go away.”
    His hand wandered over the counterpane. She put hers into it; he groped at her sleeve, and tried to drag himself toward her. She supported his head quickly, laid him down again, and to quiet him sat with his hand clasped in hers. Someone had turned on a radio for the patients’ tea hour. It was Purcell; far too loud; in a minute she must see about it. He went on murmuring, under his breath. “It’s all right now. Don’t let me fall,” and something that sounded like, “The pool’s low today.” Then, after a longer pause, in quite a different voice and so strong that it startled her: “Art thou