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narrowed. She clenched her hands slightly. She forced herself to smile.
    “What a ridiculous person you are,” she said. “Do you imagine that I was committing suicide, or something like that?”
    “Not only imagine it,” said the young man called Jessop, “I'm quite sure of it. I was in that chemist, you know, when you came in. Buying toothpaste, as a matter of fact. Well, they hadn't got the sort I like, so I went to another shop. And there you were, asking for sleeping pills again. Well, I thought that was a bit odd, you know, so I followed you. All those sleeping pills at different places. It could only add up to one thing.”
    His tone was friendly, offhand, but quite assured. Looking at him Hilary Craven abandoned pretence.
    “Then don't you think it is unwarrantable impertinence on your part to try and stop me?”
    He considered the point for a moment or two. Then he shook his head.
    “No. It's one of those things that you can't not do - if you understand.”
    Hilary spoke with energy. “You can stop me for the moment. I mean you can take the pills away - throw them out of the window or something like that - but you can't stop me from buying more another day or throwing myself down from the top floor of the building, or jumping in front of a train.”
    The young man considered this.
    “No,” he said. “I agree I can't stop you doing any of those things. But it's a question, you know, whether you will do them. Tomorrow, that is.”
    “You think I shall feel differently tomorrow?” asked Hilary, faint bitterness in her tone.
    “People do,” said Jessop, almost apologetically.
    “Yes, perhaps,” she considered. “If you're doing things in a mood of hot despair. But when it's cold despair, it's different. I've nothing to live for, you see.”
    Jessop put his rather owlish head on one side, and blinked.
    “Interesting,” he remarked.
    “Not really. Not interesting at all. I'm not a very interesting woman. My husband, whom I loved, left me, my only child died very painfully of meningitis. I've no near friends or relations. I've no vocation, no art or craft or work that I love doing.”
    “Tough,” said Jessop appreciatively. He added, rather hesitantly: “You don't think of it as - wrong?”
    Hilary said heatedly: “Why should it be wrong? It's my life.”
    “Oh yes, yes,” Jessop repeated hastily. “I'm not taking a high moral line myself, but there are people, you know, who think it's wrong.”
    Hilary said,
    “I'm not one of them.”
    Mr. Jessop said, rather inadequately,
    “Quite.”
    He sat there looking at her, blinking his eyes thoughtfully. Hilary said:
    “So perhaps now, Mr. - er -”
    “Jessop,” said the young man.
    “So perhaps now, Mr. Jessop, you will leave me alone.”
    But Jessop shook his head.
    “Not just yet,” he said. “I wanted to know, you see, just what was behind it all. I've got it clear now, have I? You're not interested in life, you don't want to live any longer, you more or less welcome the idea of death?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good,” said Jessop, cheerfully. “So now we know where we are. Let's go on to the next step. Has it got to be sleeping pills?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, I've already told you that they're not as romantic as they sound. Throwing yourself off a building isn't too nice, either. You don't always die at once. And the same applies to falling under a train. What I'm getting at is that there are other ways.”
    “I don't understand what you mean.”
    “I'm suggesting another method. Rather a sporting method, really. There's some excitement in it, too. I'll be fair with you. There's just a hundred to one chance that you mightn't die. But I don't believe under the circumstances, that you'd really object by that time.”
    “I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.”
    “Of course you haven't,” said Jessop. “I've not begun to tell you about it yet. I'm afraid I'll have to make rather a thing about it - tell you a