Bill moved his lips, and she knelt beside him once more, her thin gray hair falling over her shoulders. The sick man gazed into her face, and a look of understanding came into his bloodshot eyes.
"Ellie," he said with great effort, "I—did—not—want—it—at first," and with his eyes still looking into hers, as if mutely pleading with her to understand, the light faded from them … and the last long, staggering breath went out. Then fell silence … that never-ending silence … and quite perceptibly the colour went in patches from his face. Dr. Clay gently touched Mrs. Cavers's arm. "Yes, Doctor, I know … he's dead." She talked like people do in their sleep.
"I did my best, Will," she said, as she smoothed his thick black hair. "I tried my hardest to save you, and I always thought I would win … but they've beat me, Will. They were too strong for me … and I'm sorry!" She bent down and tenderly kissed his forehead, damp now with the dews of death.
There was not a leaf stirring on the trees. Every bird in the valley was still. Only the gentle lapping of the Souris over the fallen tree in the current below them came to their ears.
Sandy Braden's face was as white as his shirt-bosom as he stood looking at Bill's quiet face.
A cheer from the lacrosse grounds came like a voice from another world; the world of life and pleasure and action.
Mrs. Cavers, roused at the sound, stood up and addressed the hotel-keeper.
"Excuse me, Mr. Braden," she said, "I was almost forgetting. Mr. Cavers, I know had not enough with him to pay for … all this." She motioned toward Bill's dead face. "This … must have cost a lot." She handed him some silver. "It is all I have with me to-day … I hope it is enough. I know Mr. Cavers would not like to leave a debt … like this."
Mechanically Sandy Braden took the money, then dropping it as if it burned him, he turned away and went slowly up the road that he had come, reeling unsteadily. A three-seated democrat, filled with drunken men, was just driving away from his stable. They were a crowd from Howard, who had been drinking heavily at his bar all the afternoon. They drove away,—madly lashing their horses into a gallop.
Sandy Braden hid in a clump of poplars until they got past him.
Looking back toward the river he could see Mrs. Cavers kneeling
beside her husband, and even at that distance he fancied he could see
Bill's dead face looking into hers, and begging her to understand.
Just as the democrat passed pants burst into maudlin song: