Anyhow,
old chap, I owe it to you that I'm here; I should have been in the big
dark by now. No more bed, or baccy; no more anything. I say, what d'you
suppose happens to us?"
Ashurst murmured:
"Go out like flames, I expect."
"Phew!"
"We may flicker, and cling about a bit, perhaps."
"H'm! I think that's rather gloomy. I say, I hope my young sisters have
been decent to you?"
"Awfully decent."
Halliday put his pipe down, crossed his hands behind his neck, and
turned his face towards the window.
"They're not bad kids!" he said.
Watching his friend, lying there, with that smile, and the candle-light
on his face, Ashurst shuddered. Quite true! He might have been lying
there with no smile, with all that sunny look gone out for ever! He
might not have been lying there at all, but "sanded" at the bottom of
the sea, waiting for resurrection on the ninth day, was it? And that
smile of Halliday's seemed to him suddenly something wonderful, as if in
it were all the difference between life and death--the little flame--the
all! He got up, and said softly:
"Well, you ought to sleep, I expect. Shall I blow out?"
Halliday caught his hand.
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