“Désirée! Désirée!”
A smile was on her lips—almost of derision. “War is so stupid,” she said.
Upon the purple wall of the east a finger began to write in gold. The mist was stirring in the woods, the wind beginning. It lifted her dark, loosened hair, that was so wildly spread. It brought a drift of dead leaves across them where they lay. They lay side by side, like wreathed figures on a tomb. “Is it light?” she asked. “Can you see the light?”
“I can see it faintly. It is like the sound of the sea.”
“It is very cold,” she breathed. “Dark and cold.”
“Yes.... Dark and cold.”
“Give me your hand,” she said. “Kiss me. We have been happy, and we will be so again.... Now I am going.... Dark, dark—dark—”
“Désirée—”
“I see light like a star.... Good-bye.”
She died. With a last effort he moved so that his arms were around her body and his head upon her breast, and then, as the sun came up, his spirit followed hers.