He rambled on thus, scarcely ever finishing a sentence, and all the while dabbing away industriously at his sketch. He, too, I had never yet beheld in daylight; but, unlike his friend, sunshine rather improved his appearance than otherwise. It could not fill up the gaps in his coat, nor had it a lustrating effect upon his linen; yet it revealed in his long, cadaverous face, and in his mild, sad eyes, a delicacy, a sensibility, that I had not remarked in them before. As he talked, the old vicar studied his voice attentively. ‘Spelthorne,’ he went on, in his curious, disjointed, breathless way, ‘Spelthorne, his work is so immeasurably— He has such a demand for it that— And I am always so glad, of course, to do any little thing to save him trouble. I—I really think no man in the world ever had a better friend.’ The Reverend was standing close behind him now. He laid a hand gently on Grewes’s dilapidated shoulder. ‘Don’t hurry,’ he said, ‘at least don’t hurry with your mind. Above all, don’t worry: it is all coming beautifully. When did you see your doctor last?’ The question, unexpected as it was by myself, seemed to surprise Grewes infinitely more. The blood got up into two bright points in his cheeks. His brushes rattled against his palette. He looked round at the old vicar tremulously. ‘Doctor? Why, do you— What makes you think I— Oh! I am very well indeed; never better.’ He stopped, looking up into the sightless, kindly blue eyes that appeared to be as steadily gazing down into his. There was a moment’s silence. And then, if I ever saw real untrammelled joy spring into a human face, I saw it in his. ‘Do you really think so?’ he cried. ‘You think I— Well, sometimes lately I have thought myself that—’ Spelthorne’s voice grumbled out from behind the umbrella. ‘Now, my dear Grewes, have I not frequently told you that, though I am willing to lend you anything I have, I always expect—’ Grewes sprang to his feet. ‘It is his cadmium,’ he whispered, horrified. ‘I borrowed it, and never— How very annoying for him!’ ‘Now there is a strange thing,’ said the Reverend musingly, as we trudged on our way together. ‘A man well on in a rapid decline, and neither knowing nor caring about it; as glad, indeed, to hear the thing confirmed as if some one had left him a legacy! A month, did you say? Then he may never go out of Windlecombe by the road.’