"You mean that I am sure to die!" she says, faintly, with a slight shudder, while a look of utter hopeless fear comes into her wan face.
He throws his arms about her in his great despair. "Why do you make me tell you such news twice? Is not once enough?"
"It is quite sure! Oh, I wish I was not so frightened!"
His features contract in the agony of that moment; an overpowering temptation assails him, to tell her some pleasant falsehood about her state; but he resists it.
"As far as anything human can be sure, it is so," he says, turning away his head.
"Are you sure there is no mistake?—is it quite certain?"
"Quite."
"Then"—essaying to raise herself in the bed, and reaching out her slight, weary arms to him—"then kiss me, St. John!"
Without a word he gathers her to his breast; fully understanding, in his riven heart, that this embrace, which she herself can ask for, must indeed be a final one; his lips cling to hers in the wild silence of a solemn last farewell.
"I'm glad you are not angry with me now," she whispers, almost inaudibly; and then her arms slacken their clasp about his bronzed neck, and her head droops heavy and inert on his shoulder.