Why did the stupid chorus come back to her now; what chink of brain did it lie in all these years? Oh what a brute she is and how callous! She ought to read prayers, or say things; in a few hours it will be too late ever to say a word more. She finds herself beating time with her foot to a jig tune, a bizarre accompaniment to the words "too late." She would give all she possesses to cry, yet she cannot; and so the day wears on.
Later on she bends her head to him and asks: "Are you dozing or are you thinking? What are you thinking of?"
He smiles. "Of zoo, dearums, of zoo!"
"Have you said your prayers? Shall I read you any?"
"Finished them long ago! I am just waiting; lying thinking of you, dearie, thinking of you. Happier than ever I was since I left off 'taw in the lay' and pegging tops."
Her question was a concession to a past religious conscience; she feels as she puts it that as for herself, if she would die as she sits there, she would not trouble to pray; it would be well to drift out.
There is another weary hour's silence; then he looks up at her and shivers slightly, and tightens his clasp of her hand. "Kiss me, duckums, kiss me! Now lay your little old phiz on the pillow close to mine, you dearest and best in the world! Close, close to mine."
The wind is changing, and the sun hides his face decently behind a great white cloud. There is a hoarse rattle in his throat, and his breathing is difficult. The doctor comes and stands quietly behind her; the crowd at the gate above gets denser; the servants huddle together in the dining-room and cry. The Swedish gardener pats them all in turn, but most gently the fat housemaid. A sudden blast of wind blows a strand of her hair loose and it touches his lips, and he mutters, "My little one!" She lifts her face and looks at him; a strange purple color vibration is waving over his face, and she calls affrightedly,—
"Dear, oh dear man, look at me! Can you see me, do you know me?"
He lifts his heavy lids and looks at her steadily with half-dead eyes, and says with stiff, barely articulate speech: "Of course I do, my dearie! I'm all rig—"