He would not let me leave him to call the doctor.  I just knelt there holding both his hands with all my might, talking, talking, telling him we were not going to let him go.  And then, at last, the color came back into his face, he nodded his head a bit, and said, “I’ll stay,” very quietly.  Then I was able to rush for the stairs and tell Mrs. Willard to telephone for the doctor.  Three doctors we had that afternoon.  They reported the case as “dangerous, but not absolutely hopeless.”  His heart, which had been so wonderful all along, had given out.  That very morning the doctor had said:  “I wish my pulse was as strong as that!” and there he lay—­no pulse at all.  They did everything:  our own doctor stayed till about ten, then left, with Carl resting fairly easily.  He lived only a block away.

About one-thirty the nurse had me call the doctor again.  I could see things were going wrong.  Once Carl started to talk rather loud.  I tried to quiet him and he said:  “Twice I’ve pulled and fought and struggled to live just for you [one of the times had been during the crisis].  Let me just talk if I want to.  I can’t make the fight a third time—­I’m so tired.”

Before the doctor could get there, he was dead.

* * * * *

With our beliefs what they were, there was only one thing to be done.  We had never discussed it in detail, but I felt absolutely sure I was doing as he would have me do.  His body was cremated, without any service whatsoever—­nobody present but one of his brothers and a great friend.  The next day the two men scattered his ashes out on the waters of Puget Sound.  I feel it was as he would have had it.

* * * * *

“Out of your welded lives—­welded in spirit and in the comradeship that you had in his splendid work—­you know everything that I could say.

“I grieve for you deeply—­and I rejoice for any woman who, for even a few short years, is given the great gift in such a form.”

THE END