He was so tired that he could only speak a little at a time, and now he closed his eyes. Lucy thought that he was dozing, and began to pick up the fallen flowers. But he noticed what she was doing.
'Let me hold them,' he moaned, with the pleading quaver of a sick child.
As she gave them to him once more, he took her hands and began to caress them.
'The only thing for me is to hurry up and finish with life. I'm in the way. Nobody wants me, and I shall only be a burden. I didn't want them to let me go. I wanted to die there quietly.'
Lucy sighed deeply. She hardly recognised her father in the bent, broken man who was sitting beside her. He had aged very much and seemed now to be an old man, but it was a premature aging, and there was a horror in it as of a process contrary to nature. He was very thin, and his hands trembled constantly. Most of his teeth had gone; his cheeks were sunken, and he mumbled his words so that it was difficult to distinguish them. There was no light in his eyes, and his short hair was quite white. Now and again he was shaken with a racking cough, and this was followed by an attack of such pain in his heart that it was anguish even to watch it. The room was warm, but he shivered with cold and cowered over the roaring fire.
When the doctor whom Lucy had sent for, saw him, he could only shrug his shoulders.
'I'm afraid nothing can be done,' he said. 'His heart is all wrong, and he's thoroughly broken up.'
'Is there no chance of recovery?'
'I'm afraid all we can do is to alleviate the pain.'
'And how long can he live?'