His pipe fell from his inert hand and broke into fragments on the floor.
“Lord Stair.”
He did not move from his seat.
She had fallen back on her pillow; one hand trailed along the floor.
“You asked me—Andrew—”
He remembered when he had asked her; the Abbey, her words and his.
“When you ask me—”
And now—A great silence settled on the room; shadows advancing, receding, and her breath stilled forever. The nymph’s ruby eyes flashed brilliantly; the crystal warrior smiled the same; she had gone, forever. Beyond question or explanation, inscrutable, silent. After a while he rose and went to look at her; she had died as if she had fallen asleep, he lifted her cold hand from the floor and laid it on her breast.
Then he went to the window and undid the shutters.
The slipping back of the bolts made a dismal creaking; the hinges groaned; he opened the shutters and gazed through the glimmering window-pane. A wine-colored dawn was breaking over the housetops like a stain over the sky.