In the railway carriage he had sat remote from me, buried in papers.

But that touch on my shoulder was enough to set me well with myself again, if not to afford scope for pleasant improvisation.

It at least showed me that he bore me no ill-will, otherwise he would hardly have touched me.

Perhaps, even, he was grateful to me, not for service, but for ineffectual good-will.

Whatever I read into it, that was the last time he spoke to me, and the last time he touched me.