The fire caught at the coal, lighted fitful blazes among it, and crept over it in a dull red, which brightened into hot scarlet.
And the sick man lay sleeping, breathing faintly but lightly.
“It will last until dawn,” she said,—“until dawn, and no longer.”
When the first cinder dropped with a metallic sound, she started violently and laid her hand upon her breast, but after that she scarcely stirred.
The fitful blazes died down, the hot scarlet deepened to red again, the red grew dull, a gray film of ashes showed itself upon it, and then came the first faint gray of dawn, and she sat with beating heart saying to herself,
“It will go out soon—suddenly.” And the dying man was awake, speaking to her.
“Come here,” he said in a low, clear voice. “Come here.”
She went to him and stood close by the bedside. The moment of her supreme anguish had come. But he showed no signs of pain or dread, only there was a little moisture upon his forehead and about his mouth.
His eyes shone large and bright in the snowy pallor of his face, and when he fixed them upon her she knew he would not move them away.