The clock struck two.
The watcher stirred the fire, and drew the shawl closer around her. She was cold; but it was not the cold of that winter night which numbed her limbs, it was the cold icy fear which momently assumed a more definite and consistent shape.
She no longer asked: "when will he come?"
Her teeth chattered as the thought that he would never come, grew more and more like a certainty.
There was a shroud upon the earth: a pure, white, stainless shroud, prepared for one who was yet young, but who had lived too long.
To her widowed eyes this garment of snow, which nature wore, became a terrible symbol, and the stars seemed to look down upon her in infinite compassion.
He came not; could not come. The silent river had opened to receive him, and was now flowing swiftly and silently over his lifeless corpse.
The clock struck three.
A cry of agony broke from the watcher as those three small strokes with horrible distinctness fell upon her ear and seemed to utter,—
"He is dead!"