Lucilla only shook her head.
“They are all gone. Whatever anyone may say, Owen, they didn’t shirk their chances. They said Yes to Life as they saw it.”
“Can you be glad of that?”
“Very glad. Even selfishly, I can be glad. Think of three—unfulfilled—lives to be spent side by side, held together by affection if you like, but fundamentally built on an artificial basis! No, no”—her smile held humour, rather than conscious valour, though Owen saw it as valiant too—“I’m glad to have faced my facts at last, though it ought to have been done long ago, when I made my choice. I’m not optimistic now, but I—I’m free.”
As they turned, at the end of the garden path, a dark figure sped across the grass towards them. Adrian’s voice reached them, low and urgent:
“Come!”
(ii)
The Canon lay back against his pillows and it did not need the nurse’s gesture to Lucilla to tell them that he was dying. His breath came loud and fast and his eyes were closed.
Adrian had flung himself on his knees at the bedside and was sobbing, his face hidden in his arms. Quentillian stood beside Lucilla, who held her father’s hand in hers.
“Is he conscious?” Lucilla asked.