He was awakened by the presence of some one at his bedside, and the
whole of his body protested against the disturbance.
"I couldn't make you hear with knocking," said Dr Heve, "so I came into
the room."
"Hello, doctor, is that you?" Edwin sat up, dazed, and with a sensation
of large waves passing in slow succession through his head. "I must
have dropped asleep."
"I hear you had a pretty bad night with him," the doctor remarked.
"Yes. It's a mystery to me how he could keep it up."
"I was afraid you would. Well, he's quieter now. In fact, he's
unconscious."
"Unconscious, is he?"
"You'll have no more trouble with the old gentleman," said the doctor.
He was looking at the window, as though at some object of great interest
to be seen thence. His tone was gentle and unaffected. For the
twentieth time Edwin privately admitted that in spite of the weak,
vacuous smile which seemed to delight everybody except himself, there
was a sympathetic quality in this bland doctor. In common moments he
was common, but in the rare moment when a man with such a smile ought to
be at his worst, a certain soft dignity would curiously distinguish his
bearing.
"Um!" Edwin muttered, also looking at the window. And then, after a
pause, he asked: "Will it last long?"
"I don't know," said the doctor. "The fact is, this is the first case
of Cheyne-Stokes breathing I've ever had. It may last for days."
"How's the nurse?" Edwin demanded.
They talked about the nurse, and then Dr Heve said that, his brother
the Vicar and he having met in the street, they had come in together, as
the Vicar was anxious to have news of his old acquaintance's condition.
It appeared that the Vicar was talking to Maggie and Janet in the
drawing-room.
"Well," said Edwin, "I shan't come down. Tell him I'm only presentable
enough for doctors."
With a faint smile and a nod, the doctor departed. As soon as he had
gone, Edwin jumped off the bed and looked at his watch, which showed two
o'clock. No doubt dinner was over. No doubt Maggie had decided that it
would be best to leave him alone to sleep. But that day neither he nor
anybody in the household had the sense of time, the continuous
consciousness of what the hour was. The whole systematised convention
of existence was deranged, and all values transmuted. Edwin was aware
of no feeling whatever except an intensity of curiosity to see again in
tranquillity the being with whom he had passed the night. Pushing his
hand through his hair, he hurried into the sick-room. It was all tidy
and fresh, as though nothing had ever happened in it. Mrs Nixon,
shrivelled and deaf, sat in the arm-chair, watching. No responsibility
now attached to the vigil, and so it could be left to the aged and
almost useless domestic. She gave a gesture which might have meant
anything--despair, authority, pride, grief.
Edwin stood by the bedside and gazed. Darius lay on his back, with eyes
half-open, motionless, unseeing, unhearing, and he breathed faintly,
with the soft regularity of an infant. The struggle was finished, and
he had emerged from it with the right to breathe. His hair had been
brushed, and his beard combed. It was uncanny, this tidiness, this
calm, this passivity. The memory of the night grew fantastic and
remote. Surely the old man must spring up frantically in a moment, to
beat off his enemy! Surely his agonised cry for Clara must be ringing
through the room! But nothing of him stirred. Air came and went
through those parted and relaxed lips with the perfect efficiency of a
healthy natural function. And yet he was not asleep. His obstinate and
tremendous spirit was now withdrawn somewhere, into some fastness more
recondite than sleep; not far off; not detached, not dethroned; but
undiscoverably hidden, and beyond any summons. Edwin gazed and gazed,
until his heart could hold no more of the emotion which this
mysteriously impressive spectacle, at once majestic and poignant,
distilled into it. Then he silently left the old woman sitting dully by
the spirit concealed in its ruined home.
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