extract from The Still Point by Amy Sackville

"The butterflies, then, heave and clamber; the bees bustle and hum; Tess is up and prowling, licking the last of a juicy bluebottle from her teeth with luxuriant tongue.  Everywhere the creak and sigh of growing things, of life, but there is only a rumpled blanket, a discarded book, where we left Julia.  The air stirs, lifting the pages until they hesitantly turn; the words grow faint until there is only regret remaining, 'I cannot go on' whispering across the garden, and then the merciful breeze turns on to the ending, where there is only unfilled white."