[Roger makes notes.
Dimsdell. Good night, dear wife, good night.
The stars of Heaven melt into angel forms
Which stoop to lift me to the gates of bliss.
Farewell, farewell! Nay, weep not, Hester;
Our sins are now forgiven.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of th' shadow of death,
I will fear no evil.—Say it with me, Hester.
Roger. Will he die thus?
[Examines Dimsdell.
The pulse is weak—a clammy sweat—
'Tis but the culmination of the trance.
'Tis but a dream. A dream! Yet one must die;
And to our human thought that death were best
That came preceded by a flag of truce
To parley peace. To pass away in dreams—
Without the vain regret for work undone;
Without a load of sin to weight the soul;
With all the argentry of honored age
To frost our past; with all the fiercer heats
Of life burnt out into the cold, gray ash—
That were peace! Then might a man yield up
The willing ghost as calmly as a child
That falls asleep upon its mother's breast
To wake in paradise.
Dimsdell starts up.
Dimsdell. I see thee now—and now I'll kill, kill, kill—
If thou be Satan I cannot harm thee—
But if a man—
Dimsdell attempts to reach Roger, who keeps the one chair of the room in front of him and thus wards off Dimsdell.