d never done it again,
except to the interns and nurses, who, while they insisted that he was
going to get well, didn't mind joking with him about it.

Martha can bear my death, he thought, can bear pre-knowledge of it. But
she couldn't bear thinking that he might take it calmly. If he accepted
death gracefully, it would be like deliberately leaving her, and Old
Donegal had decided to help her believe whatever would be comforting to
her in such a troublesome moment.

"When'll they let me out of this bed again?" he complained.

"Be patient, Donny," she sighed. "It won't be long. You'll be up and
around before you know it."

"Back on the moon-run, maybe?" he offered. "Listen, Martha, I been
planet-bound too long. I'm not too old for the moon-run, am I?
Sixty-three's not so old."

That had been carrying things too far. She knew he was hoaxing, and
dabbed at her eyes again. The dead must humor the mourners, he thought,
and the sick must comfort the visitors. It was always so.

But it was harder, now that the end was near. His eyes were hazy, and
his thoughts unclear. He could move his arms a little, clumsily, but
feeling was gone from them. The rest of his body was lost to him.
Sometimes he seemed to feel his stomach and his hips, but the sensation
was mostly an illusion offered by higher nervous centers, like the
"ghost-arm" that an amputee continues to feel. The wires were down, and
he was cut off from himself.

* * * * *

He lay wheezing on the hospital bed, in his own room, in his own rented
flat. Gaunt and unshaven, gray as winter twilight, he lay staring at the
white net curtains that billowed gently in the breeze from the open
window. There was no sound in the room but the sound of breathing and
the loud ticking of an alarm clock. Occasionally he heard a chair
scraping on the stone terrace next door, and the low mutter of voices,
sometimes laughter, as the servants of the Keith mansion arranged the
terrace for late afternoon guests.

With considerable effort, he rolled his head toward Martha who sat
beside the bed, pinch-faced and weary.

"You ought to get some sleep," he said.

"I slept yesterday. Don't talk, Donny. It tires you."

"You ought to get more sleep. You never sleep enough. Are you afraid
I'll get up and run away if you go to sleep for a while?"

She managed a brittle smile. "There'll be plenty of time for sleep
when ... when you're well again." The brittle s