She leaned suddenly over him.  HE was in there still, somewhere. Where? If he had not ceased to breathe, the Ego, the Soul, the Personality was still in the sodden clay which had shaped to give it speech.  Why could it not manifest itself to her?  Was it still conscious in there, unable to project itself through the disintegrating matter which was the only medium its Creator had vouchsafed it?  Did it struggle there, seeing her agony, sharing it, longing for the complete disintegration which should put an end to its torment?  She called his name, she even shook him slightly, mad to tear the body apart and find her mate, yet even in that tortured moment realizing that violence would hasten his going.

The dying man took no notice of her, and she opened his gown and put her cheek to his heart, calling him again.  There had never been more perfect union; how could the bond still be so strong if he were not at the other end of it?  He was there, her other part; until dead he must be living.  There was no intermediate state.  Why should he be as entombed and unresponding as if the screws were in the lid?  But the faintly beating heart did not quicken beneath her lips.  She extended her arms suddenly, describing eccentric lines, above, about him, rapidly opening and closing her hands as if to clutch some escaping object; then sprang to her feet, and went to the window.  She feared insanity.  She had asked to be left alone with her dying husband, and she did not wish to lose her reason and shriek a crowd of people about her.

The green plots in the yards were not apparent, she noticed.  Something heavy, like a pall, rested upon them.  Then she understood that the day was over and that night was coming.

She returned swiftly to the bedside, wondering if she had remained away hours or seconds, and if he were dead.  His face was still discernible, and Death had not relaxed it.  She laid her own against it, then withdrew it with shuddering flesh, her teeth smiting each other as if an icy wind had passed.

She let herself fall back in the chair, clasping her hands against her heart, watching with expanding eyes the white sculptured face which, in the glittering dark, was becoming less defined of outline.  Did she light the gas it would draw mosquitoes, and she could not shut from him the little air he must be mechanically grateful for.  And she did not want to see the opening eye—­the falling jaw.

Her vision became so fixed that at length she saw nothing, and closed her eyes and waited for the moisture to rise and relieve the strain.  When she opened them his face had disappeared; the humid waves above the house-tops put out even the light of the stars, and night was come.

Fearfully, she approached her ear to his lips; he still breathed.  She made a motion to kiss him, then threw herself back in a quiver of agony—­they were not the lips she had known, and she would have nothing less.