He lay resting, with his eyelids half closed, his head leaning against her shoulder, her arm supporting him.
"I never thought to taste such ineffable bliss," he murmured. "You have made death euthanasia."
He lapsed into a half-sleeping state, which lasted for some minutes, while she sat as still as marble. Then he opened his eyes suddenly, and looked at her in an agitated way.
"Tonia, will you marry me?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, if you bid me, by-and-by, when you are well," she answered, humouring a dying man's fancy.
"Now, now! I have only a few hours to live. I sent for you to make you my wife. I want your love to follow me in death. I want you to bear my name—the name I refused you, the name that cost me half a lifetime of happiness. Tonia, swear that you will be true—that you will belong to me when I am dead, as you might have belonged to me in life."
She thought his mind was wandering. He had lifted himself from her arms, and was sitting up in bed, magnetized into new life by the intensity of his purpose.
"Ring that bell, dearest. Yes"—as she took up the handbell on his table—"all has been arranged. Death will be civil to the last Baron Kilrush, and will give me time for what I have to do."
His valet appeared at the door.
"Is his lordship's chaplain there?" Kilrush asked.