She smiled with that same bitter compassion, and stroked his head with her feeble hand. "How thick your hair is," she said, and weakly took a handful of it, as she had sometimes done when she was well. When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. He could not quite smother the hope that Dr. Espinette was mistaken and that she would recover with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor himself had said that one could never be certain. He felt his spirits revive, and called Beatup to go with him to the hop-fields. Naomi heard him tramp off, talking of "goldings" and "fuggles." She lay very still, hoping that the light would soon go, and give rest to her tired eyes--but she was too utterly weary to ask Mrs. Backfield to draw the curtains. Her mother-in-law put the baby back in its cradle, then sat down at the foot of the bed, folding her arms over her breast. She was tired after her labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon she began to doze. Naomi felt more utterly alone than before. Her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. There seemed to be a strange tickling irritation in her skin, while her feet were dreadfully cold. She wondered rather dully about the baby--she supposed he could not come to any harm over there in the cradle by himself, but really she did not care much--it was all one to her what happened to him. Gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint ripple of air stole into the room, lifting the hair on her forehead, tangled and damp. It struck her that she must be looking very ugly--she who had used to be such a pretty girl. The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw the great Moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden with gorse, all strength and life. It seemed to mock her savagely--"I live--you die. You die--I live." It was this hateful land which had killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "I live--you die. You die--I live." Yes, she was dying--and she hoped that she would die before Reuben came back. She did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter compassion for him. The tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her eyes were growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The evening was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. Ambition and folly had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life had run. She was like a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage half uncurled. The tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for some purely physical reason they stopped. Then a familiar tune swam into her head. She had been told of people who heard music when they were dying.