Morning was too shattered to cope with this ancient dissipation at first.
After the warring and onrushing of different faculties, a sort of coma fell upon the evil part, and the ways of the woman came back to him. He sat by his fire that night, the wound in his side forgotten, the essence of Asia’s foulness in his veins, forgotten—and meditated upon the sweetness of Betty Berry. He approached her image with a good humility. He saw her with something of the child upon her—as if he had suddenly become full of years. “How beautiful she was!” he would whisper; and then he would smile sadly at the poor blind boy he had been, not to see her beautiful at first.... To think, only three days before, she had sent him away, because she could not endure, except alone, the visitation of happiness that came to her. People of such inner strength must have their secret times and places, for their strength comes to them alone. To think that he had not understood this at once.... He had been eloquent and did not know it.
“Hell,” he said, “that’s the only way one can say the right thing—when he doesn’t plan it.”
... If his illness had been any common thing she would not have been frightened away. He was sure of this. It took Asia’s horror—to frighten her away. He saw her now, how she must have fought with it. He shuddered for her suffering on that day.... That day—why it was only the day before yesterday.... He never realized before how the illusion, Time, is only measurable by man’s feeling.... He was a little surprised at Duke Fallows. He himself wouldn’t have been driven off, if Duke had suddenly uncovered a leprous condition. He had been driven off by Duke’s ideas, but no fear of contagion could do it. Yet Duke was the bravest man he had ever known—in such deep and astonishing ways courageous. Yet he had been brought up soft. He wasn’t naturally a man-mingler. It had been too much for him. It was a staggerer—this. Fallows was a Prince anyway. Every man to his own fear.... This was the second morning.
Old Jethro, the rural delivery carrier, drove by that morning without stopping. She could not have mailed her letter until last night—another day to wait for it. Morning tried to put away the misery. Women never think of mail-closing times. They put a letter in the box and consider it delivered.... He puzzled on, regarding the action of Duke Fallows, in the light of what he would have done. No understanding came.
All thoughts returned in the course of the hours, his mind milling over and over again the different phases, but each day had its especial theme. The first was that he would not see Betty Berry again; that Duke Fallows had been frightened away, the second; and on the third morning, before dawn, he began to reckon with physical death, as if this day’s topic had been assigned to him.
Sister Death—she had been in the shadows before. Occasionally he had shivered afterward, when he thought of some close brush with her. She was all right, only he had thought of her as an alien before. It really wasn’t so—a blood sister now.... He recalled scenes in the walled cities of China.... She had certainly put over a tough one on him.... It would be in this room. He wouldn’t wait until his appearance was a revelation.... He would do the play. Something that he could take, would free him from the present inertia, so he could work for a while, a few hours a day. When the play was done—the Sister would come at his bidding.... He had always thought of her as feminine. A line from somewhere seemed to seize upon her very image—this time not sister, but——
Dark mother, always gliding near, with soft feet——
He faced her out on that third morning. Physically there was but a tremor about the coming. Not the suffering, but a certain touch and shake of the heart, heaved him a little—the tough little pump stopped, its fine incentive and its life business broken.... But that was only the rattle of the door-knob of death.