Yet as she bent over him she saw a playful gleam on the cavernous face.

“You won’t scold me?” said the changed voice—­“you did warn me—­you and Susie—­but—­I was obstinate.  It was best so!”

She pressed her lips to his hand and was answered by a faint pressure from the cold fingers.

“If I could have been there!” she murmured.

“No—­I am thankful you were not.  And I must not think of it—­or of any trouble.  Aldous is very bitter—­but he will take comfort by and by—­he will see it—­and them—­more justly.  They meant me no unkindness.  They were full of an idea, as I was.  When I came back to myself—­first—­all was despair.  I was in a blank horror of myself and life.  Now it has gone—­I don’t know how.  It is not of my own will—­some hand has lifted a weight.  I seem to float—­without pain.”

He closed his eyes, gathering strength again in the interval, by a strong effort of will—­calling up in the dimming brain what he had to say.  She meanwhile, spoke to him in a low voice, mainly to prevent his talking, telling him of her father, of her mother’s strain of nursing—­of herself—­she hardly knew what.  Hew grotesque to be giving him these little bits of news about strangers—­to him, this hovering, consecrated soul, on the brink of the great secret!

In the intervals, while he was still silent, she could not sometimes prevent the pulse of her own life from stirring.  Her eye wandered round the room—­Aldous’s familiar room.  There, on the writing-table with its load of letters and books, stood the photograph of Hallin; another, her own, used to stand beside it; it was solitary now.

Otherwise, all was just as it had been—­flowers, books, newspapers—­the signs of familiar occupation, the hundred small details of character and personality which in estrangement take to themselves such a smarting significance for the sad and craving heart.  The date—­the anniversary—­echoed in her mind.

Then, with a rush of remorseful pain, her thoughts came back to the present and to Hallin.  At the same moment she saw that his eyes were open, and fixed upon her with a certain anxiety and expectancy.  He made a movement as though to draw her towards him; and she stooped to him.

“I feel,” he said, “as though my strength were leaving me fast.  Let me ask you one question—­because of my love for you—­and him.  I have fancied—­of late—­things were changed.  Can you tell me—­will you?—­or is it unfair?”—­the words had all their bright, natural intonation—­“Is your heart—­still where it was?—­or, could you ever—­undo the past—­”

He held her fast, grasping the hand she had given him with unconscious force.  She had looked up startled, her lip trembling like a child’s.  Then she dropped her head against the arm of her chair, as though she could not speak.

He moved restlessly, and sighed.

“I should not,” he said to himself; “I should not—­it was wrong.  The dying are tyrannous.”