Bobby knelt beside the man, but there was no room for doubt. He was dead. One last moment of consciousness, that sudden question, and then... the end. Somewhat apologetically, Bobby put his hand in the stranger's pocket, took out a silk handkerchief, and reverently spread it over the dead face. There was nothing else he could do. Then he noticed that by pulling the handkerchief from the pocket, he had also taken out something else. It was a photograph, and as he put it back in its place, he glanced at the face depicted. It was a female face with a strangely otherworldly beauty. The woman was blonde with eyes set apart. She looked almost like a girl still, certainly under thirty, but it was the striking kind of beauty, not just the beauty itself, that captured the young man's imagination. Carefully and respectfully, he put the photograph back in the pocket from which it had come, and then sat down again to wait for the doctor's return.
Time passed very slowly, or at least it seemed so to the waiting young man. Also, he had just remembered something – that he had promised his father to play the church organ at the six o'clock vespers, and now it was ten to six. Of course, given the circumstances, his father would show understanding, yet Bobby wished he had remembered to notify him by sending a message with the doctor. Reverend Thomas Jones was a man with a particularly nervous temperament. He had been anxious since birth, and when he got anxious, his digestive system would collapse, causing him great discomfort. Although he considered his father a pitiable old mule, Bobby held very tender feelings for him.