At the further end, on an improvised bed of mattresses and striped sofa cushions, a white, rigid figure was lying, the eyes fixed on the skylight. Monkey Brand knelt down by his wife, and bending over her, kissed, without raising it, one of the pale clenched hands. "Cuckoo," he said, and until she heard him speak it seemed to Janet that she had never known to what heights tenderness can reach. His wife turned her eyes slowly upon him, and looked at him. In her eyes, dark with coming death, there was a great yearning towards her husband, and behind the yearning an anguish unspeakable. Janet shrank before it. The fear of death never cut so deep as that. A cry, uncouth, terrible, as of one pushed past the last outpost of endurance to the extremity of agony, rent the quiet room. "I cannot bear it," she wailed. And she, who could not raise her hands, to which death had come already, raised them once above her head. They fell heavily, lifelessly, striking her husband's face. "I would die for you if I might," said Monkey Brand, and he hid his face against the hand that had struck him. Cuckoo looked at the bowed, blue-black head, and her wide eyes wandered away past it, set in the vacancy of despair. They fell on Janet. "Who is that?" she said suddenly. The nurse brought Janet forward. "You remember me, Cuckoo?" said Janet gently, her calm smile a little tremulous, her face white and beautiful as that of an angel. "It is Janet. Thank God!" said Cuckoo, and she suddenly burst into tears. They passed quickly. "I have no time for tears," said Cuckoo, smiling faintly at her husband, as he wiped them away with a shaking brown hand. "Janet is come. I must speak to her a little quite alone." "You would not send me from you?" said Monkey Brand, his face twitching. "You would not be so hard on me, Cuckoo?" "Yes," she said, "I would." The pretty, vulgar, dying face, under its crooked fringe, was illuminated. A sort of shadow of Cuckoo's hard little domineering manner had come back to her. "I must be alone with Janet for a little bit, quite alone. You and the nurse will go outside, and wait till Janet comes to you. And then," she looked at her husband with tender love, "you will come back to me, and stay with me to the last." He still hesitated. "Go now, Arthur," she said, "and take nurse with you." The habit of obedience to her whim, her fancy, her slightest wish, was ingrained years deep in him. He got upon his feet, signed to the nurse, and left the room with her. "Is the door shut?" said Cuckoo. "Yes." "Go and make sure." Janet went to the door, and came back. "It is shut." "Kneel down by me. I can't speak loud." Janet knelt down. "Now listen to me. I'm dying. I'm not going to die this minute, because I won't; but all the same it's coming. I can't hold on. There is no time for being surprised, or for explanations. There's no time for anything, except for you to listen to me, and do something for me quickly. Will you do it?"