Was it true? One hour more, and he might be asleep, to wake up to the day that would bring him back the thing that was dearer to him than the light no day would ever bring again. Only an hour!
His little dog, sharper of hearing even than he, caught a coming sound afar, and started up in sudden indignation, dog-wise, that something, somewhere, was presuming to exist without consulting him! Whatever it was, Jim thought a restraining finger in his collar a good precautionary measure; with a slight admonition that a smothered growl, for the present, would meet all the needs of the case. It continued to express, under protest, a deep, heart-felt resentment as of a wrong too great to be endured, and still Jim could not spot the cause. At last a motor-horn, somewhere, perhaps, on the far side of the village—two miles away, say!
Loud and faint, by turns, through the village; then clearer on the open road, and then the noise of wheels at great speed. The little dog, probably catching the blinding glare of the lamps, lost all self-control at those two great unheard-of wrongs to his kind, and gave way to his feelings without reserve. Then a rush and a dust-cloud, left to do its worst, at leisure, to the lungs of man and cattle and plants, and a stench to poison the sweet air of heaven. And then a couple of folk had been carried, quicker than need was, from Thanes Castle to Royd Hall, with the execrations of a small population behind them.
Jim was too happy at heart to curse even a motor-car. Besides, he remembered how once this very car had given his little lass a ride. He owed it a benediction rather. He felt his way to his couch, and had got his wooden leg off, and found his pillow, before the reek of petrol had died away, and was asleep almost as soon as the little dog beside him. Was it his last sleep there before he should hear his little lassie's voice again?
The gas was turned down low, almost to extinction, in the ward of the Chalk Cliff Nursing Home, where Adeline Fossett was preparing to pass the night beside her little invalid's bed. There was no other patient in the room. Miss Jane, looking worn and sad, was just saying good-night, with a small hand-lamp in her hand, whose green shade was no help to the pallor of either lady. Both knew what was pending; neither knew how soon.
"Ring if you have the least doubt about it, dear," said Miss Fanshawe. "But my own impression is this will go on a day or two longer. I can't say, but I think if there's a change you'll see it."
"I won't scruple to call you. But I suppose there's nothing to be done that I can't do?"
"Nothing at all. No one can do anything now. Good-night, Adeline!" As she opened the door to go, a muffled clock outside struck midnight. "It's twenty minutes fast," said she, as she closed the door. Then, as Miss Fossett sat in the half-darkness in the large chair by the bedside, she could hear two sounds—the interrupted breathing of the little patient on the bed, and the rapid, irritating ticking of her own watch, laid by chance on something resonant. It would become maddening, she knew, in the growth of the stillness, as the night took its hold upon her; so presently she rose and quenched it. Then, being up, she went to the window, just open for ventilation, and feeling the soft air, warm for late August, opened it gently to its width, and leaned out. The voice of the water was a bare murmur now, away off over half a league of sand; and the wind must have changed, for the bells of a church a mile inland were striking twelve at leisure, and were clear through the silence; till, a railway-yell cutting them off at the tenth stroke, they wavered, lost heart, and died. These were sounds new to the day at Chalk Cliff, bathed for forty-eight hours in a southwest wind, off the sea.
"What did you say, darling?" She closed the window gently, and went back to the bed, to hear.... "Why can't you hear the waves? Is that it? Because the tide's going out. Because it's gone out as far as it can go."