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By Root 1211 0

as he had a habit of doing when the old ladies might want to discuss their ailments with him. But he was so old and infirm that the Major was confident that he would be able to track him down without much difficulty—and so it proved. He came upon him sitting in the Palm Court, little frequented these days for a number of reasons: one, of course, was the usual difficulty of the foliage having swallowed up most of the chairs and tables; another was the lack of light, since there were no gas mantles and the “Do More” generator had been idle for many a month—there were oil lamps, of course, but they gave the place such an eerie and frightening atmosphere (all those weird shapes and shadows lurking beyond the circle of light) that it was almost better to do without. Yet another, and even more conclusive, reason was the fact that Miss Porteous had somehow convinced herself that she had been bitten in there by a poisonous spider. The Major had declared this to be nonsense, but curiously enough Miss Porteous did have an enormous blue swelling on the wrist over which the offending spider was supposed to have walked. At any rate, after dark none of the ladies would have considered going in there for a moment—which was why the Major was not in the least surprised to see the doctor there, sitting in a cane chair beside the glass door into the lounge. This door afforded enough light for the Major to see that the doctor was awake. He explained that he had a cold, a very bad cold which he was afraid—he added ominously, seeing the doctor stir with impatience—might turn into something worse.

“A cold, is it?” grunted the old man querulously. “Sure, we all get ’em...a cold is nothing at all.”

And he went on to say something confused about things not being the way they used to be...or perhaps people weren’t the way they used to be, one or the other, or perhaps both, it was hard to make out precisely.

“But I just want to know what medicine to take,” the Major interrupted him plaintively. He had been going hot and cold by turns and felt that at any moment he would be suffocated by fever or roasted alive, if he was not actually poignarded to death by the painful “absence-of-Sarah” that had suddenly started to afflict him—indeed, the pangs of self-pity and Sarahlessness became appallingly acute as he listened to the old man grumbling on. A wave of fever clutched him. His shirt and underwear clung damply to his skin.

“Thought you’d come sooner or later,” the doctor was saying contemptuously. “This is no place for the likes of you...You must leave Ireland, leave Kilnalough, it’s no place at all now for a British gentleman like you. Clear yourself out of here, bag and baggage, before it’s too late!”

“But I only asked about my cold,” protested the Major petulantly. “I suppose I shall have to go to bed before it gets any worse.”

“Yes, go to bed, go to bed, that’s it,” sneered the doctor. “You’re as right as rain, just sorry for yourself.”

The doctor, splendid old chap though he no doubt was, thought the Major indignantly, was really becoming a tiny bit tiresome.

The great gong boomed for dinner. The Major dolefully wandered along a corridor. Padraig was still talking volubly to the alarmed Miss Bagley as they passed on their way to the dining-room. Did she know...did she know...did she know then what had happened to Héloise and Abélard? he was asking slyly, well, to Abélard anyway, since nothing much in that line could happen to Héloise? Well, he’d better not be telling her because it might spoil her appetite...

The Major decided not to go in to dinner. Instead he sat down dizzily in an armchair in the residents’ lounge, not his favourite room at the Majestic but he felt too weak to go any farther. His mouth open like a dying fish, he fell asleep. His last conscious image was of Dr Ryan pottering past, grumbling to himself, his stick held in a knobbly, freckled hand.

“Go on out of it, the whole bally lot o’ ye,” he might have been muttering as his boots scraped by on the other side of the Major’s drooping eyelids—but before it had time to