“You’re all in,” Bellair said in an awed tone.
Through the prolonged ending of that day Bellair watched the steamer near, but his thoughts were not held to the beauty of her form, nor the pricking out at last of her lights. He stood against the bare pole in the dusk, and waved and called—his voice little and whimsical. It seemed to falter and cling within their little radius, then run back to his ears—a fledgeling effort. But the deep baying of the steamer answered at last. Even that could not hold Bellair’s thoughts.... She was coming straight toward them now. If it were death and illusion, so be it; at least that is what he saw.
“It would be all right—except for him,” Bellair said to the woman.
“I tell you all is well,” said Fleury. “Only I ask——”
“Yes,” they said, when he paused.
“Don’t let them separate us—when we are on board the ship to-night. I want to be with you both to-night—we three who have seen so much together—and the little man.”
... They heard her bells and the slackening of the engines. She was coming in softly like an angel, bringing the different life, a return to earth it was. The woman was weeping. Bellair could not have spoken without tears....
Just now through the evening purple, he saw that star in the east, off the point of the steamer’s prow.
“Fleury,” he said, “tell me—what is that one—that pure one—I have forgotten?”