He took this as a further hint that she dreaded these visits to the sick-room, and would avoid them when possible. As it fell out, she never went again. Hugh drifted into a semi-conscious state, the presence of Wareham appearing to give him a certain satisfaction, but no desire strong enough to require expression. Doctors, nurses, chaplain, friends, watched. Wareham wrote to his father—
“He does not suffer. I do not think he wishes for anything. If I mention your name to him he smiles, but makes no attempt to speak more than an occasional disjointed word. The people here would do anything for us; his illness has confirmed my idea that the Norwegians are among the kindest people in the world, and the least mercenary. Comfort yourself with the thought that he could not have been better cared for even in his own home than here with strangers—but I know what you are feeling, ‘If only I could have seen him!’ More than once he has asked for his sister; he accepts, however, all that we tell him of the difficulties of getting here. Indeed, nothing appears to disturb him. There is an English yacht in the harbour, belonging to Lord Milborough, and he is as ready as others to be of use.
“You will want a word as to Miss Dalrymple, for whom, I know, you have no kindly feeling. You would retract if you saw her now. I am sure she suffers. Whether she ever really loved Hugh, I cannot tell. Had she—but it is impossible to theorise. I am also sure that she liked him, and he is happy in the conviction that he would have won her. This parting is quite without the bitterness of the first. She is at hand to see him if he desires it, and this, though the friend she is with is urgent to return to England.
“I am writing my letter in Hugh’s room, where there is something already of extraordinary peace. If the border-land of death were always so restful, it seems to me that half our dread would vanish.
“An hour later. I have wondered more than once whether he realised his own position, or whether weakness permitted no consciousness beyond the consciousness of the moment, but he has just asked that he might be taken home. I told him there would never have been any question of this, and it seemed to satisfy him. My letter cannot go before to-morrow, and by that time I may have more to add.”
What he added was written the next day in his own room.
“He passed away at nine this morning. The peace of which I wrote to you has not been broken, and dying seemed as natural and simple an act as living. I feel that you will long to be told about the hours before, yet there is nothing for words. It was like a hand slackening its hold in quiet sleep, and no more.
“I was with him throughout the night, and, of course, always one of the nurses; but I do not think he recognised either of us for many hours before his death. The doctors say that unconsciousness usually comes on at an earlier stage. Neither of us knew the exact moment at last; once or twice before we had thought him gone, and afterwards fancied that he breathed.
“Now you will want to know what arrangements can be made, and I must tell you hastily, lest I lose the mail. To-day is Saturday. I am ignorant as to whether there are stringent rules as to the time of burial in Norway, but I do not doubt to arrange somehow, for no steamer leaves before Tuesday, when one goes to Newcastle. I do not telegraph to you until Monday. I should not do it then, were it not for the fear that Ella might be meaning to leave Hull on Tuesday, for, unless absolutely necessary, it always appears to me cruelty to inflict that length of waiting which lies between a foreign telegram and the details of a letter.
“I wish you could see him.”