A long sigh breaks the blank silence: a moan steals helplessly from the great white mausoleum which entombs the man.
She glides forward and draws back the shroud-like folds from window, then from bed, and the yellow light falls upon a flushed and foam-flecked face, and upon two toiling, twitching hands.
And, blessed be Heaven! this is surely St. Udo Brand, and there is life in him yet!
The lawyer enters and tries to drag her back, and fills the room with his beseeching clamor; but she breaks wildly from him, and returns to St. Udo Brand.
And, Heaven be praised! she thinks that she is in time, and that this dear soul may yet be held on earth.
So she lifts the hot head to her arm, and lays her loving hand upon the heart that is almost still, and she kisses tenderly the shrunken forehead where death fain would print his seal.
And she whispers from her noble heart:
"Oh, God! give me back his life! oh, God! give me back his life!"
And the old lawyer weeps, and repeats after her the half-articulate prayer.
One glance of anguish she casts at her poor old friend, and past him, up into Heaven, it says: