Opening his eyes, Ruan turned his head a little on the pillow, so that
he could watch the changing square of sky. A ragged curtain of cloud,
blurred and wet-looking at the edge, hung almost to the hill-top, but
between ran a streak of molten pallor, and against it the hedge of
wilted thorns that crowned the hill stood out black and contorted. One
great ploughed field stretched from the garden to the hill-crest; in the
middle of its curve a tall grey granite monolith reared up, dark where
its top came against the sky, but at its base hardly distinguishable
from the bare earth around, which was charmed by the hour to a warm
purple hue; when Ruan's eyes left the gleam in the sky they could find
out the subdued green of the nearer hedge-row. For the last time, he
told himself; then, as the gleam faded from the sky and was gone, he
swallowed hard upon the knowledge that never again, for him, would the
daylight live behind the clouds. He rubbed his finger up and down the
sheet, that he might still feel a tangible sensation at will; then,
lifting his bare forearm, he looked closely and curiously at it, noting
the way the brown hairs lay across the back, and the finer texture of
skin down the inside of elbow and wrist. He, his living self, was in
that arm--he could still make the fingers contract and straighten, could
still pinch the flesh gently till it whitened--could still call it part
of himself. He was not thirsty, but he laboriously lifted the glass of
water at his side and drank, because the fancy took him to feel one of
the accustomed old sensations, the commonplaces of his every-day life,
now that his body would so soon be beyond his power. As the slow fingers
pushed the glass on to the little table again, the click of a gate
sounded sharply, followed by the noise of footsteps on a paved path. The
smile flickered back to Ruan's lips, and he settled himself to enjoy his
last little comedy.

Up bare stairs came the footsteps, then the room door opened with a