"Alastair! Alastair! Alastair!"
He gave a low laugh, as he turned on his side, and with wandering fingers played idly with the sand.
"Alastair!... my husband!... Beloved ... Alastair!... Oh, say farewell to me at the least.... Do not turn from me!"
"It called—called—called: and she cried to me, Come, my Belovèd: and then I knew Lora was dead. Why do you laugh at me? She is dead, I tell you: dead, dead, dead! She, my beautiful Lora—my dream—my joy—she who to me was Pharais itself: she is dead!"
In the grip of supreme woe, a woman has a heroism of abnegation beyond all words to tell of it.
Her grief rose within Lora as a phantom, and chilled her to the very heart and to the very brain. But with a great effort she stirred, leaned over and plucked some of the fatal fruit and swallowed it: for she had crushed in her hand the berries he had given her.
Then, having risen, with deft hands she pulled toward her some long strings of dead-man's-hair and rope-weed; and, with those which were firmly affixed to rocks or heavy stones, she wove a girdle about the waist of Alastair, and so round her own.
She could scarce see to finish her task, for the moon had passed upward into the denser cloud, and the faintly luminous veils of vapour beneath it were now scarce distinguishable from the obscurity all around.
The insistent wash of the tide was coming steadily nearer. She could feel the cold breath of its moving lip.
Absolute darkness prevailed; while, with shaking hands, having unloosed her long, black hair, she tied it firmly in two places with the curly tangle of him whom she loved so passing well in death as in life.