Ebbing Powers 
sat looking at the summer weather and at the 
aeroplanes from the Farnborough factory circling 
in the sky. Over those fields he had once seen 
Will-o’-the-Wisp, and now . . . Now his last 
sister was dead—he divined it as soon as he saw 
me. Of the old family none was left save him- 
self alone; yet he could still creep about. He 
had the use of his feet for Ann’s funeral; and 
once afterwards, for a family gathering to settle 
up her small affairs. But this was almost the 
last time. Soon he took to a bath-chair, in 
which, a helpless cripple, he continued to see 
the more public roads of the neighbourhood. 
Once that neighbourhood had entered into his 
life so keenly, with the challenge of contaét on 
all sides. He had loved the touch. But it was 
hardly to be got from a bath-chair more than it 
would have been from a motor-car. What he 
felt I do not know. He seemed cheerful ; 
chatted as of old; gave no other sign of being 
bored. Only, now and then, it was hard to 
resist the impression that he was feeling tired of 
life, when one heard from him that unintended 
and half-unconscious sigh. 
141 
