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presence she was left with. ‘I’m not sick like that, am I?’
    â€˜What intrigues me,’ the stranger said, ‘is his accent. You’d say he was a foreigner, but he gave an English name. I think I’ll follow him and talk.’
    Her mind had worked clearly since she fainted; the sight of a world reversed, in which it had been the doctor who lay beneath her needing pity and care, had made the old images of the world sharp with unfamiliarity; but words lagged behind intuition, and when she appealed ‘Don’t bother him,’ the stranger was already out of hearing.
    â€˜What do you think?’ Myatt asked. ‘Is he right? Is there a mystery?’
    â€˜We’ve all got some secrets,’ she said.
    â€˜He might be escaping the police.’
    She said with absolute conviction, ‘He’s good.’ He accepted the phrase; it dismissed the doctor from his thoughts. ‘You must lie down,’ he said, ‘and try to sleep,’ but it did not need her evasive reply, ‘How can I sleep with that woman and her stomach?’ to remind him of Mr Peters lurking in his corner for her return and the renewal of his cheap easy harmless satisfactions. ‘You must have my sleeper.’
    â€˜What? In the first class?’ Her disbelief and her longing decided him. He determined to be princely on an Oriental scale, granting costly gifts and not requiring, not wanting, any return. Parsimony was the traditional reproach against his race, and he would show one Christian how undeserved it was. Forty years in the wilderness, away from the flesh-pots of Egypt, had entailed harsh habits, the counted date and the hoarded water, nor had a thousand years in the wilderness of a Christian world, where only the secret treasure was safe, encouraged display; but the world was altering, the desert was flowering; in stray corners here and there, in western Europe, the Jew could show that other quality he shared with the Arab, the quality of the princely host, who would wash the feet of beggars and feed them from his own dish; sometimes he could cease to be the enemy of the rich to become the friend of any poor man who sought a roof in the name of God. The roar of the train faded from his consciousness, the light went out in his eyes, while he built for his own pride the tent in the oasis, the well in the desert. He spread his hands before her. ‘Yes, you must sleep there. I’ll arrange with the guard. And my coat—you must take that. It will keep you warm. At Cologne I’ll find you coffee, but it will be better for you to sleep.’
    â€˜But I can’t. Where will you sleep?’
    â€˜I shall find somewhere. The train’s not full.’ For the second time she experienced an impersonal tenderness, but it was not frightening as the first had been; it was a warm wave into which she let herself down, not too far, if she felt afraid, for her feet to be aware of the sand, but only far enough to float her without effort on her own part where she wanted to go—to a bed and a pillow and a covering and sleep. She had an impression of how grace came back to him with confidence, as he ceased to apologize or to assert and became only a ministering shadow.
    Myatt did not go to find the guard but wedged himself between the walls of corridor and compartment, folded his arms and prepared to sleep. But without his coat it was very cold. Although all the windows of the corridor were shut, a draught blew past the swing door and over the footboard joining coach to coach. Nor were the noises of the train regular enough now to be indistinguishable from silence. There were many tunnels between Herbesthal and Cologne, and in each the roar of the express was magnified. Myatt slept uneasily, and the rush of the loosed steam and the draught on his cheek contributed to his dream. The corridor became the long straight Spaniards Road with the heath on either side. He was being driven