Sorrell and Son by Warwick Deeping

Days came when Stephen Sorrell went no longer into his garden, but looked at the trees and the sky from the little platform of his bed. He would never leave it again as a live man. He was an earthy-coloured, emaciated creature whose very knees seemed to be thrusting through the bedclothes. He was dying of pain and of starvation and of sleeplessness, but on that poor stalk of a neck a head, that looked enlarged, continued to endure. Looking at him Molly would wonder how he kept his soul erect, for he had no definite faith in a life beyond. It was just the quiet, indomitable nature of the man refusing to complain, to appeal, or to cry out.

But, during that last week, it was she who realized how near Sorrell was to breaking-point. She understood it better than did his son, though Kit was with them now till the end should come. Sorrell's son looked tired, gently and desolately tired, a little dazed too and dumb, with helpless, waiting eyes. He would sit and look at his father as though it hurt him to look, and yet as though there was nothing else to do. He gave him morphia, but the pain had become a flame of anguish that would not be quenched.