III
The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface.
She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any more.
The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away.
The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to bed ... and she would never get up again.
She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky very faintly green.
She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared.
"I'll go to bed, Dorchester."
"Very well, Your Grace."
"I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the window and closed her eyes.