"
"In a way, yes. But also he is more alive than he has ever been. He
seems to hear with uncanny distinctness, for instance."
The doctor frowned.
"I was inclined to attribute his decline to the operation of old age,"
he remarked, "but this is unusual. This--er--inner acuteness is
accompanied by no particular interest in any one thing?".
As she did not reply for the moment he was about to accept the silence
for acquiescence, but then through the dimness he was arrested by the
lustre of her eyes, fixed, apparently, far beyond him.
"One thing," she said at length. "Yes, there is one thing in which he
retains an interest."
The doctor nodded brightly.
"Good!" he said. "And that--?"
The silence fell again, but this time he was more roused and he fixed
his eyes keenly upon her through the gloom. She was deeply troubled; one
hand gripped the horn of her saddle strongly; her lips had parted; she
was like one who endures inescapable pain. He could not tell whether it
was the slight breeze which disturbed her blouse or the rapid panting of
her breath.
"Of that," she said, "it is hard to speak--it is useless to speak!"
"Surely not!" protested the doctor. "The cause, my dear madame, though
perhaps apparently remote from the immediate issue, is of the utmost
significance in diagnosis."
She broke in rapidly: "This is all I can tell you: he is waiting for
something which will never come.
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