Stealing back into the house, she heard Don Fernando coughing. It sounded as though he were in pain, and so she lit a night lamp and took him a glass of water and held it patiently.
"Thanks. My throat ... gets dry. What time is it?"
"It's night ... sometime in the night."
"Go back to bed," he told her.
"But I can't sleep," she said softly.
He tried to see her, but without his glasses he saw only a white blur.
"I've been awake a long time," he said. "A long time."
"Are you in pain?"
"No. But I keep seeing things," he said.
"What kind of things?" she said.