The focus here was the face of the old cattleman.

The bedclothes, never stirred, lay in folds sharply cut out with black shadows, and they had a solid seeming, as the mort-cloth rendered in marble over the effigy.

That suggested weight exaggerated the frailty of the body beneath the clothes.

Exhausted by that burden, the old man lay in the arms of a deadly languor, so that there was a kinship of more than blood between him and Kate at this moment.

She stepped to the side of the bed and stood staring down at him, and there was little gentleness in her expression.