I am sitting up in bed, writing by the light of two candles; it is a golden light, in the pure white moonlight that fills the cell.
The slit of a window opposite the bed is wide open, and the moonlight floods in.
I am so cold, I have put on my big travelling coat.
The moonlit air tastes of mountain tops. The stillness is immense in the small room. All the silences of the world are in the room.
I cannot see the moon, nor the snow peaks; only the sky of sheer moonlight, and a dark dim mountain, looming.
I am so glad to be awake and cold.
VI
While I was writing, something happened. An ugly sound broke the spell. Some one was coming to the hospice. There was the sound of a motor-bicycle, from a long way off, coming through the stillness. There was the calling of its horn and then it was at the door.
I heard the door open, and a cry of delight; and a man's young voice, joyous, high-keyed, intense, and a woman's voice, laughing and sobbing.