"You see, old man," said Parkman, sharply, "what you've got ahead of you?"
But he only murmured, happily, faintly, as one about to fall asleep: "She loved me—like that."
It terrified her; it seemed, not as though the great idea were holding him, but as though he were taking it away with him, even as though well content to go, having this to take with him from life.
"Karl—Karl!" she sobbed—"don't you _see _how I love you?—don't you see you _must _live now—for me?"
But he had far transcended all sense of suffering or loss, even her suffering and loss. Her plea—she herself—could not reach him. He and the great idea were going away together. And that light did not leave his face.
It was so that he sank into a sleep. He did not hear Ernestine's sobs; he knew nothing of her pleading cries. In a frenzy of grief she felt him going out to where she could not reach him. She called to him, and he did not answer. She pressed close to him, and he did not know that she was there.
But the great idea was with him. It lighted his face to the last. It was as if that were what he was taking with him from life. It was as if that, and that alone, he could keep.
"Karl—Karl!" she cried, terrorised—"look at me! Speak to me! I am here! Ernestine is here!"—And then, the strongest word of woman to man—"I'm frightened! Oh take care of me—Karl—take care of me!"
Dr. Parkman tried to take her away, but she resisted fiercely, and they let her stay. And during the few hours which followed she never ceased her pleading—to him to come back to her, to them to help. Crazed with the consciousness of his slipping from her, wild beyond all reason with the thought that her kisses could not move him, her arms could not hold him, her passion lashed to the uttermost in the thought that she must claim him now or lose him forever, she pleaded with all the eloquence of human voice and human tears. She could not believe it—that he was there beside her and would not listen to her pleadings. Again and again she told him that she was frightened and alone; that—surely that—he must hear. It could not be that he was there beside her, breathing, moving a little now and then, and did not hear her call for help.
And when at last she heard some one speak a low word, and saw some one bend over him to close his eyes, she uttered one piercing, heartbreaking cry which they would bear with them so long as they lived. And then, throwing herself upon him, shielding him, keeping him, there came the wild, futile call of life to death—"Karl!—Karl!—Karl!"