She looked at him.

‘Then why are you afraid of me?’ she said.

He looked at her a long time before he answered.

‘It’s the money, really, and the position. It’s the world in you.’

‘But isn’t there tenderness in me?’ she said wistfully.

He looked down at her, with darkened, abstract eyes.

‘Ay! It comes an’ goes, like in me.’

‘But can’t you trust it between you and me?’ she asked, gazing anxiously at him.

She saw his face all softening down, losing its armour. ‘Maybe!’ he said. They were both silent.

‘I want you to hold me in your arms,’ she said. ‘I want you to tell me you are glad we are having a child.’

She looked so lovely and warm and wistful, his bowels stirred towards her.

‘I suppose we can go to my room,’ he said. ‘Though it’s scandalous again.’

But she saw the forgetfulness of the world coming over him again, his face taking the soft, pure look of tender passion.

They walked by the remoter streets to Coburg Square, where he had a room at the top of the house, an attic room where he cooked for himself on a gas ring. It was small, but decent and tidy.

She took off her things, and made him do the same. She was lovely in the soft first flush of her pregnancy.

‘I ought to leave you alone,’ he said.

‘No!’ she said. ‘Love me! Love me, and say say you’ll keep me. Say you’ll keep me! Say you’ll never let me go, to the world nor to anybody.’

She crept close against him, clinging fast to his thin, strong naked body, the only home she had ever known.

‘Then I’ll keep thee,’ he said. ‘If tha wants it, then I’ll keep thee.’

He held her round and fast.

‘And say you’re glad about the child,’ she repeated.

‘Kiss it! Kiss my womb and say you’re glad it’s there.’

But that was more difficult for him.

‘I’ve a dread of puttin’ children i’ th’ world,’ he said. ‘I’ve such a dread o’ th’ future for ‘em.’

‘But you’ve put it into me. Be tender to it, and that will be its future already. Kiss it!’

He quivered, because it was true. ‘Be tender to it, and that will be its future.’—At that moment he felt a sheer love for the woman. He kissed her belly and her mound of Venus, to kiss close to the womb and the foetus within the womb.

‘Oh, you love me! You love me!’ she said, in a little cry like one of her blind, inarticulate love cries. And he went in to her softly, feeling the stream of tenderness flowing in release from his bowels to hers, the bowels of compassion kindled between them.

And he realized as he went into her that this was the thing he had to do, to e into tender touch, without losing his pride or his dignity or his integrity as a man. After all, if she had money and means, and he had none, he should be too proud and honourable to hold back his tenderness from her on that account. ‘I stand for the touch of bodily awareness between human beings,’ he said to himself, ‘and the touch of tenderness. And she is my mate. And it is a battle against the money, and the machine, and the insentient ideal monkeyishness of the world. And she will stand behind me there. Thank God I’ve got a woman! Thank God I’ve got a woman who is with me, and tender and aware of me. Thank God she’s not a bully, nor a fool. Thank God she’s a tender, aware woman.’ And as his seed sprang in her, his soul sprang towards her too, in the creative act that is far more than procreative.

“He’s dying, Dr. Watson,” said she. “For three days he has been sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get a doctor. This morning when I saw his bones sticking out of his face and his great bright eyes looking at me I could stand no more of it. ‘With your leave or without it, Mr. Holmes, I am going for a doctor this very hour,’ said I. ‘Let it be Watson, then,’ said he. I wouldn’t waste an hour in coming to him, sir, or you may not see him alive.”

I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not say that I rushed for my coat and my hat. As we drove back I asked for the details.

“There is little I can tell you, sir. He has been working at a case down at Rotherhithe, in an alley near the river, and he has brought this illness back with him. He took to his bed on Wednesday afternoon and has never moved since. For these three days neither food nor drink has passed his lips.”

“Good God! Why did you not call in a doctor?”

“He wouldn’t have it, sir. You know how masterful he is. I didn’t dare to disobey him. But he’s not long for this world, as you’ll see for yourself the moment that you set eyes on him.”

He was indeed a deplorable spectacle. In the dim light of a foggy November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt, wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart. His eyes had the brightness of fever, there was a hectic flush upon either cheek, and dark crusts clung to his lips; the thin hands upon the coverlet twitched incessantly, his voice was croaking and spasmodic. He lay listlessly as I entered the room, but the sight of me brought a gleam of recognition to his eyes.

“Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,” said he in a feeble voice, but with something of his old carelessness of manner.

“My dear fellow!” I cried, approaching him.

“Stand back! Stand right back!” said he with the sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis. “If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you out of the house.”

“But why?”

“Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?”

Yes, Mrs. Hudson was right. He was more masterful than ever. It was pitiful, however, to see his exhaustion.

“I only wished to help,” I explained.

“Exactly! You will help best by doing what you are told.”

“Certainly, Holmes.”

He relaxed the austerity of his manner.

“You are not angry?” he asked, gasping for breath.

Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight before me?

“It’s for your own sake, Watson,” he croaked.

“For my sake?”

“I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra — a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.”