The vicar bowed his head. He dared not look in the eyes of the man to whom he was conveying this dire sentence. He felt Pickering subsiding gently to the pillow and straightening his limbs.
“How long?”
The words were uttered in a singularly calm voice—so calm that the pastor ventured to raise his sorrow-laden face.
“Soon. Perhaps three days. Perhaps a week. But you will be delirious. You have little time in which to prepare.”
Again a silence. A faint shriek reached them from afar, the whistle of the train entering Nottonby, the pleasant little town which Pickering would never more see.
“What a finish!” he muttered. “I’d have liked it better in the saddle. I wouldn’t have cared a damn if I broke my neck after hounds.”
Another pause, and the vicar said gently:
“Have you made your will?”
“No.”