"Arthur," she asked, "is this the end?"
"I fear it is," I answered, speaking close to her ear so that she might hear.
"Then we have little time, and I have something which I must say, which you must promise me to remember when—when—I am no longer with you."
"You will be always with me while we live. I think I deserve that at last."
"Yes, you deserve that and more. I will be with you while I live, but that will not be for long."
I was about to interrupt her when she put her soft little hand upon my lips and said:
"Listen, there is very little time. It is all a mistake. I mean Herbert was wrong. He might as well have let me have my earthly span of happiness or folly—call it what you will."
"You see that now—thank God!"
"Yes, but I see it too late, I did not know it until—until I was dead. Hush!" Again I tried to interrupt her, for I thought her mind was wandering. "I died psychically with Herbert. That was when we first saw the light on the island. Since then I have lived mechanically, but it has only been life in so low a form that I do not now know what has happened between that time and this. And I could not now speak as I am speaking save by a will power which is costing me very dear. But it is the only voice you could hear. I do not therefore count the cost. My brother's brain so far overmatched my own that it first absorbed and finally destroyed my mental vitality. This influence removed, I am a rudderless ship at sea—bound to perish."
"May his torments endure for ever. May the nethermost pit of hell receive him!" I said with a groan of agony.