"He--he is not far now!"
"Thank God! Yet Philip--Andrew--oh! I cannot see your face, know not which it is; keep him away from me. Kill him rather--kill him--kill him dead. Hark he is coming up the stairs; he is outside; listen. And Clemence, too; can you not hear her? Hark how she speaks to him. Calls him coward, villain, base, vile--ah! like his mother! You hear him?"
She raised herself by some last remaining force within her, stretched out her hands, and seemed to push away some hateful form from her, whispered once--with horror unspeakable in her glazed eyes--"Marry you! Better death!" then fell back once more. Yet still again her lips moved, again she muttered "Kill him! Kill him dead!"
After these last words she lay quietly for a considerable space of time, her breathing calm and tranquil, her bosom heaving gently, the wave of life receding peacefully. Yet once or twice she murmured to herself, also uttered Philip's name and her father's, then was quiet and still again--so still that Andrew knew not at some moments whether she was sleeping or dying; whether she was asleep or dead.
But the last change came ere long; she murmured now of the fire from which she thought they were still fleeing; of the black night, and, next, the breaking dawn. Then, half rose up in her bed once more, and held out feebly, piteously, her hands.
"Andrew," she whispered, "Andrew, how dark the night is. I can scarce see your face. Will daylight never come?"
"Soon, sweet; soon, poor one," he said, standing now close by her, his arms around her, his voice deep and low. "The light is coming fast."
"And Philip. Will he not come? I shall see him?"
"Soon. Very soon."
"Never more to part?"