In a moment her arms were round him, and his head was on her shoulder.
'Forgive,' he repeated over and over again, between the long-drawn gasps which shook him from head to foot.
And then the battle for life began.
She found his little flask in his pocket, and managed to make him swallow the contents.
He struggled, but she upheld him. Her strength was as the strength of ten.
At last, all in a moment, the struggle ceased, and a light came into his fixed eyes of awe and thankfulness, and—was it joy?
He did not move. He did not speak. His whole being seemed absorbed in that of some vast enfolding presence.
She called him wildly by name.
He trembled, and his troubled eyes, with all the light blown out of them, wandered back to seek hers. Death looked at her through them. He saw her as across a gulf. He recognised her. He remembered. He had hoped that when he came to die it might be quietly, without a scene, but it was not to be. He made a last effort.
'Not for pity—for——' he gasped, his ebbing breath winnowing the air. But Death cut short the lie faltering on his lips, and his head fell suddenly forward on her breast. She held him closely to her, murmuring incoherent words of love and tenderness, such as she had never dared to speak while he had ears to hear.