"Have you told him?" I asked. "I had to, because, the heart being in that condition, he must be careful." "Did he understand _really_?" "Oh, yes. He said he quite understood." (Yet, a few minutes later when I saw Henry, and begged him to remember what the doctor had said about his heart, he exclaimed: "Fiddle! It's not my heart at all! It's my _breath_!" Oh, the ignorance of great men!) "I also told him," the Wolverhampton doctor went on, "that he must not work so hard in future." I said; "He will, though,--and he's stronger than any one." Then I went round to the hotel. I found him sitting up in bed, drinking his coffee. He looked like some beautiful gray tree that I have seen in Savannah. His old dressing-gown hung about his frail yet majestic figure like some mysterious gray drapery. We were both very much moved and said little. "I'm glad you've come. Two Queens have been kind to me this morning. Queen Alexandra telegraphed to say how sorry she was I was ill, and now you----" He showed me the Queen's gracious message. I told him he looked thin and ill, but _rested_. "Rested! I should think so. I have plenty of time to rest. They tell me I shall be here eight weeks. Of course I shan't, but still--It was that rug in front of the door. I tripped over it. A commercial traveller picked me up--a kind fellow, but damn him, he wouldn't leave me afterwards--wanted to talk to me all night." I remembered his having said this, when I was told by his servant, Walter Collinson, that on the night of his death at Bradford he stumbled over the rug when he walked into the hotel corridor. We fell to talking about work. He said he hoped that I had a good manager ... agreed very heartily with me about Frohman, saying he was always so fair--more than fair. "What a wonderful life you've had, haven't you?" I exclaimed, thinking of it all in a flash. "Oh, yes," he said quietly, ... "a wonderful life--of work." [Illustration: _Copyright by the London Stereoscopic Co._ HENRY IRVING AS MATTHIAS IN "THE BELLS" IRVING GAVE HIS LAST PERFORMANCE OF "THE BELLS" AT BRADFORD, ON OCTOBER 12, 1905, THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH ] [Illustration: _Copyright by the Topical Press Agency_ IRVING'S DEATH MASK] "And there's nothing better, after all, is there?" "Nothing." "What have you got out of it all?... You and I are 'getting on,' as they say. Do you ever think, as I do sometimes, what you have got out of life?" "What have I got out of it?" said Henry, stroking his chin and smiling slightly. "Let me see.... Well, a good cigar, a good glass of wine--good friends--" Here he kissed my hand with courtesy. Always he was so courteous--always his actions, like this little one of kissing my hand, were so beautifully timed. They came just before the spoken words, and gave them peculiar value. "That's not a bad summing up of it all," I said. "And the end.... How would you like that to come?"