Chapter III

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"She stood up; her fair hair seemed to catch all the remaining light in a glimmer of gold. I rose too.

"`And of all this,' she went on, mournfully, `of all his promise, and of all his greatness, of his generous mind, of his noble heart, nothing remains--nothing but a memory. You and I--'

"`We shall always remember him,' I said, hastily.

"`No!' she cried. `It is impossible that all this should be lost-- that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing--but sorrow. You know what vast plans he had. I knew of them too--I could not perhaps understand,--but others knew of them. Something must remain. His words, at least, have not died.'

"`His words will remain,' I said.

"`And his example,' she whispered to herself. `Men looked up to him,-- his goodness shone in every act. His example--'

"`True,' I said; `his example too. Yes, his example. I forgot that.'

"`But I do not. I cannot--I cannot believe--not yet. I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody will see him again, never, never, never.'

"She put out her arms as if after a retreating figure, stretching them black and with clasped pale hands across the fading and narrow sheen of the window. Never see him! I saw him clearly enough then. I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I live, and I shall see her too, a tragic and familiar Shade, resembling in this gesture another one, tragic also, and bedecked with powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms over the glitter of the infernal stream, the stream of darkness. She said suddenly very low, `He died as he lived.'

"`His end,' said I, with dull anger stirring in me, `was in every way worthy of his life.'

"`And I was not with him,' she murmured. My anger subsided before a feeling of infinite pity.

"`Everything that could be done--' I mumbled.

"`Ah, but I believed in him more than anyone on earth--more than his own mother, more than--himself. He needed me! Me! I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.'

"I felt like a chill grip on my chest. `Don't,' I said, in a muffled voice.

"`Forgive me. I--I-- have mourned so long in silence--in silence. . . . You were with him--to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear. . . .'

"`To the very end,' I said, shakily. `I heard his very last words. . . .' I stopped in a fright.

"`Repeat them,' she said in a heart-broken tone. `I want-- I want--something--something--to--to live with.'

"I was on the point of crying at her, `Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. `The horror! The horror!'