Pat Claremanagh floated in a grey sea, under a grey sky. It seemed to him that the grey sea and sky were part of some existence after death. He vaguely remembered that he had died. If it were not for the constant, heavy pain in his head, he thought that he could recall the whole incident.

Yes, that was the word—"incident". It hardly mattered now, and wasn\'t worth while racking his brain over. That tin hat of his was too tight—much too tight. But he was too weak to lift his hands and take it off. Strange, though, that he should be wearing it when he was dead!

He must have been killed in the war. Yet, how long ago the war seemed! He had thought that a great many things had happened to him after the war. No doubt they were part of this dream—this long, floating dream—after death. But they were not grey like the leaden sea and the sky that hung so low over his head. They were beautiful, colourful things. Just straining to remember brought rainbow flashes across his brain. Out of these lights a girl\'s face looked at him.

"Juliet!" he heard himself mutter, in a thick, tongue-tied voice.

Instantly another face appeared, and blotted out that of the girl. This one was solid and very real. It bent over him in the greyness: a man\'s face, somehow familiar, as if he had known it long ago—long ago disliked it: a fleshy bulk surrounded with hair. He loathed it for itself, and hated it for shutting out the vision of Juliet, so he closed his eyes.

For a moment consciousness died down like a fading flame. Only a vast, vague greyness was left, and the tight pain of the tin hat. But when a few moments or a few years had passed, a voice spoke. It beat upon his dulled intelligence like the strokes of a clock in the dark, telling an hour. Pat was suddenly keyed up to listening, because it was a woman\'s voice, and far down within himself he was aware that a woman\'s voice—a certain woman\'s voice—was what he yearned to hear.

Strange! He was wide awake, and knowledge came to him that he was not dead, after all, though he might be close to death. But he did not open his eyes, because he could not bear to see the living mass of flesh and hair again. He lay quite still. And he listened.

"You are always hanging over him like that whenever I turn my back!" said the woman.

"Why not? I do no harm," answered a man\'s voice, with a rather soft, monotonous foreign accent.

Pat knew that the voice belonged to the face. It also had association with long past things which were somehow important. A scene began forming in his tired mind, like bits of an old picture being matched together. A room with tables, and men drinking and smoking; a cleared space; a kind of stage; a girl dancing—slim, lovely, light as a fawn; long red hair waving back and forth—Lyda!—that was her name. Lyda—something. He was at one of the tables, very young, only a boy. And the hairy man sat with him, talking, praising the girl. Markoff!

He stopped, remembering, and listened again.

"You\'d do harm if you dared to," the woman said. "You\'d like to kill him."

"I tink it will be better for us all if he die," said the man. "Much better! Much safer. But no violence. Let him go—fade away. I tought it would soon be finished wiz him. Zen he open his eyes and look at me. You hear him speak—some word."

"Yes, I heard him," the woman answered. "It\'s the first time he\'s made a sound—since, except a sort of groaning. I\'m jolly glad. We don\'t want him to drop off the hooks. Not much!"

"You are ver\' foolish, Madam. He can give your \'usband and ze ozzers away. It is only me who \'ave nozzing to fear. He do not see me zere. Yet I am witness agains\' any ones who treat me wrong."

"Pooh!" said the woman. "You\'re always harping on your power to hurt us. It\'s ............