On this day of low-lying mists, this day so dull that not a shadow was cast by tree or house or man, there was no graver place than the room of old Joe Cumberland; even lamp light was more merciful in the room, for it left the corners of the big apartment in obscurity, but this meagre daylight stripped away all illusion and left the room naked and ugly. Those colours of wall and carpet, once brighter than spring, showed now as faded and lifeless as foliage in the dead days of late November when the leaves have no life except what keeps them clinging to the twig, and when their fallen fellows are lifted and rustled on the ground by every faint wind, with a sound like breathing in the forest. And like autumn, too, was the face of Joe Cumberland, with a colour neither flushed nor pale, but a dull sallow which foretells death. Beside his bed sat Doctor Randall Byrne and kept the pressure of two fingers upon the wrist of the rancher. When he removed the thermometer from between the lips of Cumberland the old man spoke, but without lifting his closed eyelids, as if even this were an effort which he could only accomplish by a great concentration of the will. "No fever to-day, doc?" "You feel a little better?" asked Byrne. "They ain't no feelin'. But I ain't hot; jest sort of middlin' cold." Doctor Byrne glanced down at the thermometer with a frown, and then shook down the mercury. "No," he admitted, "there is no fever." Joe Cumberland opened his eyes a trifle and peered up at Byrne. "You ain't satisfied, doc?" Doctor Randall Byrne was of that merciless modern school which believes in acquainting the patient with the truth. "I am not," he said. "H-m-m!" murmured the sick man. "And what might be wrong?" "Your pulse is uneven and weak," said the doctor. "I been feelin' sort of weak since I seen Dan last night," admitted the other. "But that news Kate brought me will bring me up! She's kept him here, lad, think of that!" "I am thinking of it," answered the doctor coldly. "Your last interview with him nearly--killed you. If you see him again I shall wash my hands of the case. When he first came you felt better at once--in fact, I admit that you _seemed_ to do better both in body and mind. But the thing could not last. It was a false stimulus, and when the first effects had passed away, it left you in this condition. Mr. Cumberland, you must see him no more!" But Joe Cumberland laughed long and softly. "Life," he murmured, "ain't worth that much! Not half!" "I can do no more than advise," said the doctor, as reserved as before. "I cannot command."