From this side of the house and right through the silence that hung over it, Louisa could hear very faintly rising from the servants' quarters below, the sound of women's voices chattering and giggling. The nurses then had not returned to their post. With the indifference born of long usage they were enjoying every minute of the brief respite accorded them, content to wait for the doctor's call if the patient had immediate need of them. Through the chink of the door, the red glow of a shaded lamp came as a sharp crimson streak cutting the surrounding gloom. Louisa pushed open the door that was ajar and tip-toed softly in. The little room had been transformed for present emergencies. The desk had been pushed aside, and a small iron bedstead fitted up for the night nurse. A woman's paraphernalia was scattered about on the massive early Victorian furniture: a comb and brush, a cap and apron neatly folded, a couple of long pins, littered the table which used to look so severe with its heavy inkstand and firm blotting-pad. The piano had been relegated into a corner, and the portrait of Luke which always hung over the mantlepiece had been removed. The door into the bedroom was wide open, and without any hesitation Louisa went in. The bed was immediately in front of her, and between it and the hanging lamp beyond a screen had been placed, so that the upper part of the sick man's figure was invisible at first in the gloom, and the light lay like a red patch right across the quilt at the foot. Louisa advanced noiselessly and then halted beside the bed. The room was pleasantly warm, and the smell of disinfectants, of medicines, and of lavender water hung in the air--the air of a sick room, oppressive and enervating. Gradually Louisa's eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. She fixed them on the sick man who lay quite still against the pillows, his face no less white than the linen against which it rested. Louisa had no idea that any man could alter so in such brief while. It almost seemed difficult to recognize in the white emaciated figure that lay there with the stillness of death, the vigorous man of a few months ago. The face had the appearance of wax, deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth accentuating its hollow appearance: the hair was almost snow-white now and clung matted and damp to the forehead and sunken temples. Lord Radclyffe seemed unconscious of Louisa's presence in the room, but his eyes were wide open and fixed on a spot high upon the wall immediately opposite to the bed. Louisa looked to see on what those eyes were gazing so intently, and turning she saw the splendid portrait of Luke de Mountford painted by the greatest living master of portraiture, which we all admired in the rooms of the Royal Academy a few years ago. It had been taken away from the boudoir, and brought in here so that the sick man might have the semblance now that he was parted from the reality.