They had removed the linen suit from the body, washed it and groomed it and clothed it in a simple cotton gown. The covers were laid over it, the hem of pale blue sheet covering the edge of the white blanket and perfectly smooth across the chest. The eyelids were molded too closely over the eyes, as if the skin were already flattening and even melting. To a vampire’s keen senses, it already gave off the fragrance of death.

But this David would not know, nor catch that scent.

He stood at the bedside looking down at the body, at his own still face with the skin faintly yellow, and the crust of beard looking somehow soiled and unkempt. With an uncertain hand he touched his own gray hair, letting his fingers linger on the curling strands just before the right ear. Then he drew back and stood collected, merely looking, as though he were at a funeral and paying his respects.

“It’s dead,” he murmured. “Really and truly dead.” He gave a deep sigh and his eyes moved over the ceiling and the walls of the little chamber, over the window with its drawn blinds and then over the dull linoleum tile of the floor. “I sense no life in it or near it,” he said, with the same subdued voice.

“No. There’s nothing,” I answered. “The process of decay has already begun.”

“I thought he’d be here!” he whispered. “Like a bit of smoke in this room. I thought surely I’d feel him near me, struggling to get back in.”

“Perhaps he is here,” I said. “And he cannot do it. How ghastly even for him.”

“No,” he said. “There’s no one here.” Then he stared at his old body as if he could not tear his eyes away.

Minutes ticked by. I watched the subtle tension in his face, the fine plastic skin infused with the expression of emotion, and then smoothing itself again. Was he resigned now? He was as closed to me as he had ever been, and seemed even more deeply lost in this new body, even though his soul shone through with such fine light.

Again, he sighed, and drew back, and we walked together out of the room.

We stood in the dull beige corridor together, beneath the grim and yellowish fluorescent lights. Beyond the glass window, with its thin dark screen, Miami flickered and blazed; a dull roar came from the nearby freeway, its cascade of burning headlamps sliding perilously close before the road swerved and rose again on its long thin concrete legs and shot away.

“You realize you’ve lost Talbot Manor,” I said. “It belonged to that man there.”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that,” he answered listlessly. “I’m the sort of Englishman who would. And to think it goes to such a dreary little cousin, who will only want to put it on the market at once.”

“I shall buy it back for you.”

“The order may do it. They are in my will for most of the estate.”