He got ready to mount the masonry and spring over, when he felt a tongue licking his hands.  He turned, and Homo was behind him.  Gwynplaine uttered a cry.  Homo wagged his tail.  Then the wolf led the way down a narrow platform to the wharf, and Gwynplaine followed him.  On the vessel alongside the wharf was the old wooden tenement, very worm-eaten and rotten now, in which Ursus lived when the boy first came to him at Weymouth.  Gwynplaine listened.  It was Ursus talking to Dea.

“Be calm, my child.  All will come right.  You do not understand what it is to rupture a blood-vessel.  You must rest.  To-morrow we shall be at Rotterdam.”

“Father,” Dea answered, “when two beings have always been together from infancy, and that state is disturbed, death must come.  I am not ill, but I am going to die.”

She raised herself on the mattress, crying in delirium, “He is no longer here, no longer here.  How dark it is!” Gwynplaine came to her side, and Dea laid her hand on his head.

“Gwynplaine!” she cried.

And Gwynplaine received her in his arms.

“Yes, it is I, Gwynplaine.  I am here.  I hold you in my arms.  Dea, we live.  All our troubles are over.  Nothing can separate us now.  We will renew our old happy life.  We are going to Holland.  We will marry.  There is nothing to fear.”

“I don’t understand it in the least,” said Ursus.  “I, who saw him carried to the grave.  I am as great a fool as if I were in love myself.  But, Gwynplaine, be careful with her.”

The vessel started.  They passed Chatham and the mouth of the Medway, and approached the sea.

Suddenly Dea got up.

“Something’s the matter with me,” she said.  “What is wrong?  You have brought life to me, my Gwynplaine, life and joy.  And yet I feel as if my soul could not be contained in my body.”

She flushed, then became very pale, and fell.  They lifted her up, and Dea laid her head on Gwynplaine’s shoulder.  Then, with a sigh of inexpressible sadness, she said, “I know what this is.  I am dying.”  Her voice grew weaker and weaker.

“An hour ago I wanted to die.  Now I want to live.  How happy we have been!  You will remember the old Green Box, won’t you, and poor blind Dea?  I love you all, my father Ursus, and my brother Homo, very dearly.  You are all so good.  I do not understand what has happened these last two days, but now I am dying.  Everything is fading away.  Gwynplaine, you will think of me, won’t you?  Come to me as soon as you can.  Do not leave me alone long.  Oh!  I cannot breathe!  My beloved!”

Gwynplaine pressed his mouth to her beautiful icy hands.  For a moment it seemed as if she had ceased to breathe.  Then her voice rang out clearly.

“Light!” she cried.  “I can see!”

With that Dea fell back stiff and motionless on the mattress.

“Dead!” said Ursus.

And the poor old philosopher, crushed by his despair, bowed his head, and buried his face in the folds of the gown which covered Dea’s feet.  He lay there unconscious.