Pardon me! A man of my age in an hour like this Must cry a little--wait till I can say The last words that she said to me. She put Her arms about me, then she said to me: "I am so glad my life and place in life Were such that I was forced to rise or sink, To strive or fail. God has been good to me, Who gifted me with spirit to aspire." I go back to my store now. In these days, Last days, of course, I try to be a husband, Try to be kinder to the mother of Elenor. Death is not far off, and that makes us think. We may be over soft or penitent; Forgive where we should hate still, being soft; And fade off from the wrongs, we brooded on; And cease to care life has been badly lived, From first to last. But none the less our vision Seems clearer as we end this trivial life. And so I try to be a kinder husband To Elenor's mother. So spoke Henry Murray To Merival; a stenographer took down His words, and they were written out and shown The jury. Afterward the mother came And told her story to the coroner, Also reported, written out, and shown The jury. But it happened thus with her: She waited in the coroner's outer room Until her husband told his story, then With eyes upon the floor, passing her husband, The two in silence passing, as he left The coroner's office, spoke amid her sighs, Her breath long drawn at intervals, looking down The while she spoke: MRS. MURRAY