strong to be resisted. "Do you think we are in danger?"

"I think _they_ are about here now. I feel my vitality going
rapidly--that's always the first sign. You'll last longer than I,
remember. Watch carefully."

The conversation dropped. I was afraid to say all I wanted to say. It
would have been too unmistakably a confession; and intuitively I
realised the danger of admitting the existence of certain emotions until
positively forced to. But presently Shorthouse began again. His voice
sounded odd, and as if it had lost power. It was more like a woman's or
a boy's voice than a man's, and recalled the voice in my dream.

"I suppose you've got a knife?" he asked.

"Yes--a big clasp knife; but why?" He made no answer. "You don't think a
practical joke likely? No one suspects we're here," I went on. Nothing
was more significant of our real feelings this night than the way we
toyed with words, and never dared more than to skirt the things in our
mind.

"It's just as well to be prepared," he answered evasively. "Better be
quite sure. See which pocket it's in--so as to be ready."

I obeyed mechanically, and told him. But even this scrap of talk proved
to me that he was getting further from me all the time in his mind. He
was following a line that was strange to me, and, as he distanced me, I
felt that the sympathy between us grew more and more strained. _He knew
more_; it was not that I minded so much--but that he was willing to
_communicate less_. And in proportion as I lost his support, I dreaded