“You will take the infection,” she warned him.
“It is very likely,” said he, “but no great matter.”
On that he lifted her in his arms, as he had lifted her once before that night. Despite his shaken condition, the act cost him but little effort, for she was very slim and light. Unresisting—for she was too dazed and weak for any physical resistance now—she suffered him to bear her to the daybed. There he set her down at full length, carefully adjusting the wine-coloured cushions, so as to give ease to her head and limbs.
Then he passed round the couch to the shuttered windows, unbarred them, and set the casement wide to let a draught of the clean, cool night air into the stifling room. That done, he turned, and remained standing there beside the couch, looking down upon her with eyes that were as the eyes of some poor dumb beast in pain.
The cool air revived her a little, set her pulses beating more steadily, and cleared her mind of some of the numbness that had been settling upon it. For a spell she lay there, panting a little, remembering and realizing the situation and her own condition. Then she raised her eyes to look at the ghastly, haggard face above her, and to meet that anguished glance. For a little while she stared at him, her own countenance expressionless.
“Why do you stay?” she asked him at length in a dull voice. “Go ... go your ways, sir, and leave me to die. It is, I think, all that remains to do. And ... and I think that I shall die the easier without your company.”
He stepped back as if she had struck him. He made as if to answer her; then his parted lips came together again, his chin sank until it touched his breast. He turned, and with dragging feet walked slowly out of the room, softly closing the door.
She lay there invaded suddenly by a great fear. She strained her ears to catch the sounds of his footsteps in the passage, until finally the slamming of the door leading to the street announced to her that, taking her at her word, he was gone, indeed. She sat up in alarm, holding her breath, listening to his steps moving quickly now, almost at a run, up the street. At last she could hear them no longer. Her fears mounted. For all her brave talk, the thought of dying alone, abandoned, in this empty house filled her with terror; so that it seemed to her now that even the company of that dastard would have been better than this horror of loneliness in the hour of death.
She attempted to rise, to follow, to seek the companionship of human beings who might yet afford her some assistance and ease her sufferings. But her limbs refused their office. She got to her feet merely to collapse again, exhausted. And now she flung herself prone upon the daybed, and sobbed aloud until the searing pain in her breast conquered even her self-pity, and stretched her writhing in agony as if upon a rack. At last a merciful unconsciousness supervened.