“Dr. Mount says he is.”
“But how can he know? He knows Father can’t speak, but he doesn’t know he can’t hear us.”
“I expect there are signs he can tell by.”
“The last words he ever spoke were said to me. That’ll be something comforting to remember.... But oh, it was dreadful finding him like that! I do hope it hadn’t lasted long ... that he hadn’t been like that for a long time, all alone....”
Doris bowed her head into her hands and sobbed loudly. As she sat there, crouched over the fire, her face with the merciful powder and colour washed off by tears, all haggard and blotched, and the make-up of her eyes running down her cheeks, her hair tumbling on her ears, and revealing the dingy brown roots of its chestnut undulations—she looked by far the most stricken of the party, more even than the sick man, who but for his terrible breathing lay now in ordered calm.
A clock in the house struck three.
“I wonder when we’ll hear about Peter,” whispered Rose.
“I’m surprised we haven’t heard already,” said Mary—“They must have gone all over the Starvecrow land by now.”
“Um....” said Rose, “that seems to point to his not being anywhere about the place.” Then she added—“I wonder if Gervase will come. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t.”
“I should. They’d never keep him back when his father’s dying.”