“She died as I must die,” he said. “Why not?”
A chill had fallen with the setting of the sun. He shivered again, and found that his limbs were stiff beneath him; he pushed the dark hair back from his face and gazed before him, trying to conjure the figure of the dancer in the pink gauze and blue jet out of the encroaching shadows.
But he knew that it was useless, that she was dead and buried with all those other women.
And death had him by the throat, was struggling with him even now, and he must prepare himself to go down into the darkness that enveloped them.
He went upstairs to the room he called his own; as he opened the door of it he heard steps below, and leaning over the rails saw the old woman who owned the inn enter with a basket of grapes on her grey head.
The young Duke blew her a kiss; she was the last woman whom he would ever see. He entered his room; the flies still buzzed round the stale bread and dirty glass, but the golden pool of sunlight had gone from the floor.
“Not one of those women,” reflected Philip Wharton, “ever thought that I should die–like this!”
So saying the young rake seated himself heavily and wearily in his former seat by the table and stretched out his hand for his pipe which lay next the glass.
But before he touched it, he felt a slight cold touch on his shoulder, and thought he heard some one behind him.