He was not waiting anymore, and not watching his own children for signs of the knife.

He was, in his last season, simply at peace.

I have sat with many people at the end, in my years of nursing, and I have learned to tell the difference between a peaceful dying and a troubled one, and it has almost nothing to do with the illness and almost everything to do with the life behind it and the people at the bedside.

Arthur was dying of the same failing heart he had been dying of when I met him.