“What is it now?” I asked. One of the elder servants answered:
“Oh sir, the master’s worse. Parker’s afraid he’s going. He’s just run downstairs for you, sir; and now he’s gone back.”
I did not wait to hear any more, but pushed past them, through the sitting-room, and ran upstairs.
The door of the old man’s room was open, and I heard faint sounds from within. I went straight in without knocking, and turned the corner of the screen.
Parker, who was kneeling by the bed, supporting his master in his arms, turned his head as I came in sight, and made a gesture with it. I came close up.
“He’s going fast, sir, I’m afraid,” he whispered.
The old man was sitting up in bed looking quite straight before him. His lips were slightly parted; and his eyes were full of expectancy. He kept lifting his hands gently, half opening them with a welcoming movement, and then letting them fall. Now he leaned gently forward, as if to meet something with his hands extended, then sinking a little back upon Parker’s arm. He paid no attention to me, and it seemed as if his eyes were focused to an almost infinite distance.
I too knelt down by the bed and waited watching him. Then there came soft footsteps at the door, but it was not for that he waited. Then a whispering and a sobbing: and I knew that the servants were gathering outside.
Still he waited for that which he knew would come before he died. And the expectancy deepened in his eyes to an almost terrible intensity; and it was the expectancy that feared no disappointment. It was perfectly still outside, the servants were quiet now, and the old man’s breathing was inaudible. Once I heard the far-off bark of a dog away somewhere in the village.
As I watched his face I saw how wrinkles covered it, the corners of his eyes and his forehead were deeply furrowed, and the lines deepened and shifted as his face worked. And then suddenly he cried out: “He is coming, my son, He is coming far away.” And then silence.