"Now, a dying man's request is sacred. I told her she should see him. I made her follow me upstairs, and wait outside his room. I promised to let her know if he recovered consciousness. I have never been thanked like that, before or since. "I went back into the bedroom. He was still unconscious, and the terrier whining. In the next room a child was crying--the very same young man we buried to-day. Mrs. Godwin was still standing by the bed. "'Have you sent her away?' "I had to say that Godwin really wished to see her. At that she broke out: "'I won't have her here--the wretch!' "I begged her to control herself, and remember that her husband was a dying man. "'But I'm his wife,' she said, and flew out of the room." The doctor paused, staring at the fire. He shrugged his shoulders, and went on: "I'd have stopped her fury if I could! A dying man is not the same as the live animal, that he must needs be wrangled over! And suffering's sacred, even to us doctors. I could hear their voices outside. Heaven knows what they said to each other. And there lay Godwin with his white face and his black hair--deathly still--fine-looking fellow he always was! Then I saw that he was coming to! The women had begun again outside--first, the wife, sharp and scornful; then the other, hushed and slow. I saw Godwin lift his finger and point it at the door. I went out, and said to the woman, 'Dr. Godwin wishes to see you; please control yourself.' "We went back into the room. The wife followed. But Godwin had lost consciousness again. They sat down, those two, and hid their faces. I can see them now, one on each side of the bed, their eyes covered with their hands, each with her claim on him, all murdered by the other's presence; each with her torn love. H'm! What they must have suffered, then! And all the time the child crying--the child of one of them, that might have been the other's!" The doctor was silent, and the old Director turned towards him his white-bearded, ruddy face, with a look as if he were groping in the dark. "Just then, I remember," the doctor went on suddenly, "the bells of St. Jude's close by began to peal out for the finish of a wedding. That brought Godwin back to life. He just looked from one woman to the other with a queer, miserable sort of smile, enough to make your heart break. And they both looked at him. The face of the wife--poor thing!--was as bitter hard as a cut stone, but she sat there, without ever stirring a finger. As for the other woman--I couldn't look at her. He beckoned to me; but I couldn't catch his words, the bells drowned them. A minute later he was dead. "Life's a funny thing! You wake in the morning with your foot firm on the ladder--One touch, and down you go! You snuff out like a candle. And it's lucky when your flame goes out, if only one woman's flame goes out too.