The next day was a wild one of wind and rain. Rain slashed the windows and spurted upon the lawns, died away into grey sodden clouds, burst forth again and was whirled by the wind with a noise like singing hail against the shining panes. The day passed without any incident. The normal life of the house was carried on. Henry worked in the library. Duncombe came in, found a book, went out again. The evening—the last evening—was upon them all with a startling suddenness. The women went up to their rooms; Charles Duncombe, his face grey and drawn, stopped Henry.
"Wait a minute," he said. "I'm going round the house for the last time. Come with me."
He lit a candle and they started. The rain had died now to a comfortable purr. Into every room they went, the candle, raised high, throwing a splash of colour, marking pools of flickering light.
The old bedroom near the Chapel seemed to hold Duncombe. He stood there staring, the candlestick steady in his hand, but his eyes staring as though in a dream.
He sat down in a chair near the four-poster.
"We'll stop here a moment," he said to Henry. "It's the least I can do for the old room. It knows I'm going. This was the bridal-chamber of the old Duncombes," he said. "Lady Emily Duncombe died in this room on her wedding-night. Heart failure. In other words, terror. . . . Poor little thing."
"And now I'm going to die too." Henry said something in protest. "Oh, of course there's a chance—a-million-to-one chance. . . ." He looked up, smiling. "I'll tell you one thing, Henry. Pain, if you have much of it, makes death a most desirable thing. Pain! Why I'd no idea at the beginning of what pain really was until this last year. Now I know. Many times I've wanted to die these last months, just before it comes on, when you know it's coming. . . . Pain, yes I know something about that now."
He had placed the candle on a table near to him. He raised it now above his head. "Dear old room. I remember crawling in here when I was about three and hiding from my nurse. They couldn't find me for ever so long. . . . And now it's all over."
Henry said: "Not over if you've cared for it."
"By Jove, there's something in that," Duncombe answered. "And I depend on you to carry it on. It's strange how my thoughts have centred round you these last weeks. If I get through this by good fortune I'll talk to you a bit, tell you things I've never told a living soul. I've always been alone all my life, not because I wanted to be, but just because I'm English. I've seen other men look at me just as I've looked at them, as though they longed to speak but their English education wouldn't let them lest they should make fools of themselves. Then human beings have seemed to me so disappointing, so weak, so foolish. Not that I've thought myself any better. No, indeed. But we're a poor lot, there's no doubt about it.