“We must carry him indoors,“ said Leon.
“I will call the servants,” gasped María who could hardly speak. But the dying man pushed her aside, as she and Leon were about to lift him.
“Let me be,” he said. “Sit down by me.” María obeyed, and bent her head over his. “To-morrow, to-morrow when I have received my Saviour—I will deliver up my soul ... but how cold it is! It is snowing, is it not?” his dimmed eyes wandered heavenwards.
“There are no stars to-night,” he murmured hoarsely. “A dark night before the dawn of glory. To-morrow—I will ask forgiveness of you all, and fall asleep in the Lord’s arms—you see I am quite easy now, quite at rest.... My only fear is that this respite may prolong my life. Oh! I do not long for health, I do not want to be better, all I ask is to suffer, to choke—suffocate—die. The relief I feel now....”
His head fell gently on his sister’s shoulder and lay there as helplessly as though his neck were broken. He shut his eyes, his breathing was no more than a fluttering sigh. He was dying as softly as a bird drops to sleep.
“It is over,” said Leon bending over him.
María clung to the body and kept it from falling to the ground, and when the servants came hurrying out and carried him to his bed, she kissed him passionately again and again, kneeling by the cold form. Leon, hardly certain even now that he could be dead, came to the bedside to feel his pulse and hold a mirror to his lips; but his wife started to her feet and standing in front of her husband, with a prohibitory gesture and eyes flashing with horror and tears, she cried out in a tone of furious scorn:
“Wretch! would you dare to touch him?”