We watched till morning by the dying man, She weeping silently, I grieved and wan, And still he moved not. But with the first break Of day in the window panes we saw him make A sign as if of speaking. Pressing near-- For his lips moved, Griselda deemed, in prayer-- We heard him make profession of his faith, As a man of pleasure face to face with death, A kind of gambler's Athanasian Creed, Repeated at the hour of his last need. "Five sovereigns," said he, steadying his will, As in defiance of death's power to kill, And with that smile of a superior mind, Which was his strength in dealing with mankind, The world of sporting jargon and gay livers. "Five sovereigns is a fiver, and five fivers A pony, and five ponies are a hundred-- No, four," he added, seeing he had blundered. "_Four_ to the hundred and _five_ centuries Make up the monkey." From his dying eyes The smile of triumph faded. "There, I've done it," He said, "but there was no great odds upon it, You see with a broken back." He spoke no more, And in another hour had passed the door Which shuts the living from eternity. Where was he? God of pity, where was he? This was the end of Lady L.'s romance. When we had buried him, as they do in France, In a tomb inscribed "_à perpétuité_" (Formally rented till the Judgment Day), She put off black, and shed no further tears; Her face for the first time showed all its years, But not a trace beyond. Without demur She gave adhesion to my plans for her, And we went home to London and Lord L., Silent together, by the next night's mail. She had been six weeks away. The interview Between them was dramatic. I, who knew Her whole mad secret, and had seen her soul Stripped of its covering, and without control, Bowed down by circumstance and galled with shame, Yielding to wounds and griefs without a name, Had feared for her a wild unhappy scene. I held Lord L. for the least stern of men, And yet I dared not hope even he would crave No explanation e'er he quite forgave.