Slowly the lines in his face deepened, and a fine, gleaming sweat
started out on his brow. His face contorted in a spasm of voiceless
suffering, and he drew a stiff hand down either arm. Howat watched him
in a species of strained curiosity, with a suspension of breath.
Something, he felt, should be done to relieve the oppression of agony
gathering on Felix Winscombe's countenance, but a corresponding sense of
complete helplessness settled like a leaden coffin about him. The other
became unrecognizable; his face seemed to be set in an unnatural grin.
His head drew back on a thin, corded neck, and a faint gasping for air
stirred in the shadows. Even Howat felt the pain to be unendurable, and
Ludowika, white as milk, had risen to her feet. She stood with a hand
half raised beneath a fringed corner of the India shawl.

It was incredible that the sufferer's agony should increase, but it was
apparent that it did remorselessly. All humanity was obliterated in an
excruciating spasm over which streamed some meagre tears. Mr.
Winscombe's arms raised and dropped; and, suddenly relaxed, he slipped
down upon the pillows. Immediately the torment vanished from his
countenance; it became peaceful, released. The familiar mockery of the
mouth came back. The head, slightly turned, seemed to regard Ludowika
with contentment and interrogation. Howat was conscious of a relief
almost as marked as that on the face before him. He had gripped his
hands until they ached. The tension in the room, too, seemed spent. He
was about to address a reassuring period to Ludowika, when, at a glimpse
of her expression, the words died on his lips.

He bent over the bed, with his hand on a ridged, still chest; he gazed
down at flaccid eyes, a dropped chin. Felix Winscombe was dead.