She sat there plunged in the profoundest grief that can come to the
human soul, for in all other agony hope flickers, however forlornly. She
gazed dully at the unconscious breathing form of the man who had been
friend, and companion, and lover, during five years of youth too
vigorous and hopeful to be warped by uneven fortune. It was wasted by
disease; the face was shrunken; the night-garment hung loosely about a
body which had never been disfigured by flesh, but had been muscular
with exercise and full-blooded with health. She was glad that the body
was changed; glad that its beauty, too, had gone some other-where than
into the coffin. She had loved his hands as apart from himself; loved
their strong warm magnetism. They lay limp and yellow on the quilt: she
knew that they were already cold, and that moisture was gathering on
them. For a moment something convulsed within her. _They_ had gone too.
She repeated the words twice, and, after them, "_forever_." And the
while the sweetness of their pressure came back to her.

She leaned suddenly over him. HE was in there still, somewhere. _Where?_
If he had not ceased to breathe, the Ego, the Soul, the Personality was
still in the sodden clay which had shaped to give it speech. Why could
it not manifest itself to her? Was it still conscious in there, unable
to project itself through the disintegrating matter which was the only
medium its Creator had vouchsafed it? Did it struggle there, seeing her
agony, sharing it, longing for the complete disintegration which should
put an end to its torment? She called his name, she even shook him
slightly, mad to tear the body apart and find her mate, yet even in that
tortured moment realizing that violence would hasten his going.

The dying man took no notice of her, and she opened his gown and put her
cheek to his heart, calling him again. There had never been more perfect