Do you understand that--that his mind--his memory, rather, is a little impaired ?" She lifted his hands and laid her soft lips against them: "Will you take me to him, Duane ?" Colonel Mallett lay in the pale November sunlight, very still, his hands folded on his breast.

And at first she did not know him in this ghost of the tall, well-built, gray-haired man with ruddy colour and firm, clear skin.
As she bent over, he opened his eyes, smiled, pronounced her name, still smiling and keeping his sunken eyes on her.

They were filmy and bluish, like the eyes of the very old; and the hand she lifted and held was the stricken hand of age--inert, lifeless, without weight.
She said that she was so happy to know he was recovering; she told him how proud everybody was of Duane, what exceptional talent he possessed, how wonderfully he had painted Miller's children.

She spoke to him of Roya-Neh, and how interesting it had become to them all, told him about the wild boar and her own mishaps with the guileful pig.
He smiled, watching her at times; but his wistful gaze always reverted to his son, who sat at the foot of the couch, chin balanced between his long, lean hands.
"You won't go, will you ?" he whispered.
"Where, father ?" "Away." "No, of course not." "I mean with--Geraldine," he said feebly.
"If I did, father, we'd take you with us," he laughed.
"It is too far, my son....

You and Geraldine are going too far for me to follow....