Who, passing below on the black strip of water and, seeing her pale, white face looking out from that high window into the night, could have conceived of such wonderful reconciliation as this? Who could have imagined the whole moment as it was? An old gentleman lying in a tiny room, the lamp still burning on the altar at his side, his hands crossed upon his breast in an unbreaking sleep; away out upon the water of the Lagoon, two lovers, young, alight with life, exalted in a sudden realisation of happiness, and this little old white-haired lady, alone in that great, high-ceilinged room, with its heavy, deep-coloured curtains and its massive pictures hanging on the wall and in the heart of her, a great uplifting thankfulness in the midst of such absolute desolation as this, a thankfulness that her life was a great, an all-comprehending fulfilment, that her greatest work was done, her highest desire reached--who, in the first inspiration of their imagination, seeing that frail white face pressed close against the window pane, could have conjured to their mind such a moment as this? And yet, these simple things are life. A face peering from a window, a hand trembling at a touch, a sudden laugh, a sudden silence, they all may hide the greatest history, if one had but the eyes to read. For more than half-an-hour she remained there without movement almost, except when she pressed her hand inquiringly to her breast to feel for the beating of her heart. At last, with a little shudder, as though, in that moment, she realised the vast space of emptiness in the great room behind her, she moved away. Still her steps were steady, still her head was high, as she walked back to the little room where, evening after evening, year after year, the old gentleman had sat with her and talked, until the time came when they must go to bed. For with old people, as you know, it comes to be a state of--must--they must go to bed. It is not kind to tell them so, but there it is. The room was disordered; for a time of sickness is as a time of siege--the time when Death lays siege upon a house and there are no moments left to put things as they were. On any other occasion, she would have fretted at the sight. The world is sometimes all compassed in an old lady’s work-basket, and to upset that, is to turn the world upside down. But now, as she saw all the untidiness, the little old white-haired lady only sighed. She took her accustomed chair and, seating herself, stared quietly at the chair that was empty, the chair that was still placed, just as he had left it that morning when, going down to see to his garden and to speak to Tito, he had fallen in the great room outside, and they had carried him straight to his bed.