I know more about it than the doctor, he replied, staring at me with
stem fury. I studied to be a doctor. And I watched my mother and brother
die, just as I am dying now.
There was no answer for that. We sat silent. Then in a gentler voice he
said:
Will you promise me something? My things weren't good enough; they were
just beginning to be better. When I am dead I want you to make sure that
Francis does what he promised. There must be no name on my grave. Just
write: Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
There was a noise in the next room. Blair had returned with the
water-colourist. We withdrew. The poet was too sick to see us again and
when I came back from the country he had died and his fame had begun to
spread over the whole world.