Quickly she replied, “I promise you, Ancliffe, I promise... How strange—what you tell!... But not strange for Benton!... Ancliffe! Speak to me!—Oh, he is going!”
With her first words a subtle change passed over Ancliffe. It was the release of his will. His whole body sank. Under the intense whiteness of his face a cold gray shade began to creep. His last conscious instant spent itself in the strange gaze Allie had felt before, and now she had a vague perception that in some way it expressed a blessing and a deliverance. The instant the beautiful light turned inward, as if to illumine the darkness of his soul, she divined what he had once been, his ruin, his secret and eternal remorse—and the chance to die that had made him great.
So, forgetful of the other beside her, Allie Lee watched Ancliffe, sustained by a nameless spirit, feeling with tragic pity her duty as a woman—to pray for him, to stay beside him, that he might not be alone when he died.
And while she watched, with the fading of that singular radiance, there returned to his face a slow, careless weariness.
“He’s gone!” murmured Stanton, rising. A dignity had come to her. “Dead! And we knew nothing of him—not his real name—nor his place ... But even Benton could not keep him from dying like an English gentleman.”
She took Allie by the hand, led her out of the parlor and across the hall into a bedroom. Then she faced Allie, wonderingly, with all a woman’s sympathy, and something else that Allie sensed as a sweet and poignant wistfulness.
“Are you—Neale’s sweetheart?” she asked, very low.
“Oh—please—find him—for me!” sobbed Allie.
The tenderness in this woman’s voice and look and touch was what Allie needed more than anything, and it made her a trembling child. How strangely, hesitatingly, with closing eyes, this woman reached to fold her in gentle arms. What a tumult Allie felt throbbing in the full breast where she laid her head.
“Allie Lee!... and he thinks you dead,” she murmured, brokenly. “I will bring him—to you.”