Then once more
his senses seemed to be leaving him. He passed into the world
which seemed to consist only of himself and a youth in fisherman's
oilskins, who was sometimes Furley, sometimes his own sister,
sometimes the figure of a person who for the last twenty-four
hours had been continually in his thoughts, who seemed at one
moment to be sympathising with him and at another to be playing
upon his face with a garden hose. Then it all faded away, and a
sort of numbness crept over him. He made a desperate struggle for
consciousness. There was something cold resting against his
cheek. His fingers stole towards it. It was the flask, drawn
from his own pocket and placed there by some unseen hand, the top
already unscrewed, and the reviving odour stealing into his
nostrils. He guided it to his lips with trembling fingers. A
pleasant sense of warmth crept over him. His head fell back.
When he opened his eyes again, he first turned around for the tea
by his bedside, then stared in front of him, wondering if these
things which he saw were indeed displayed through an upraised
blind. There was the marsh--a picture of still life--winding
belts of sea creeping, serpent-like, away from him towards the
land, with broad pools, in whose bosom, here and there, were
flashes of a feeble sunlight. There were the clumps of wild
lavender he had so often admired, the patches of deep meadow
green, and, beating the air with their wings as they passed, came
a flight of duck over his head.
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