Unluckily we can't get nearer than two years to his death. I
shouldn't mind guessing some last devastating dream swept over
him, held him the breath of an instant too long beneath the wave,
and he caved in. We know he killed himself; and perhaps lived to
regret it ever after.

'After all, what is this precious dying we talk so much about?'
Herbert continued after a while, his eyes restlessly wandering
from shelf to shelf. 'You remember our talk in the churchyard? We
all know that the body fades quick enough when its occupant is
gone. Supposing even in the sleep of the living it lies very
feebly guarded. And supposing in that state some infernally
potent thing outside it, wandering disembodied, just happens on
it--like some hungry sexton beetle on the carcase of a mouse.
Supposing--I know it's the most outrageous theorising--but
supposing all these years of sun and dark, Sabathier's emanation,
or whatever you like to call it, horribly restless, by some
fatality longing on and on just for life, or even for the face,
the voice, of some "impossible she" whom he couldn't get in this
muddled world, simply loathing all else; supposing he has been
lingering in ambush down beside those poor old dusty bones that
had poured out for him such marrowy hospitality--oh, I know it;
the dead do. And then, by a chance, one quiet autumn evening, a
veritable godsend of a little Miss Muffet comes wandering down
under the shade of his immortal cypresses, half asleep, fagged
out, depressed in mind and body, perhaps: imagine yourself in his
place, and he in yours!' Herbert stood up in his eagerness, his
sleek hair shining. 'The one clinching chance of a century!
Wouldn't you have made a fight for it? Wouldn't you have risked
the raid? I can just conceive it--the amazing struggle in that