Otherwise the
room was silent.
In the alcove stood the bed which had been Patricia's. Intent upon its
occupant were three persons, with their backs turned to her. One
Patricia could easily divine to be a doctor; he was twiddling a
hypodermic syringe between his fingers, and the set of his shoulders was
that of acquiescence. Profiles of the others she saw: one a passive
nurse in uniform, who was patiently chafing the right hand of the bed's
occupant; the other a lean-featured red-haired stranger, who sat
crouched in his chair and held the dying man's left hand.
For in the bed, supported by many pillows, and facing Patricia, was a
dying man. He was very old, having thick tumbled hair which, like his
two-weeks' beard, was uniformly white. His eyelids drooped a trifle, so
that he seemed to meditate concerning something ineffably remote and
serious, yet not, upon the whole, unsatisfactory. You saw and heard the
intake of each breath, so painfully drawn, and expelled with manifest
relief, as if the man were very tired of breathing.
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