Eventually, after what may have been hours, the tumult ebbed away, and she lay impassive in my arms, like one meekly resigned when there is no longer any purpose in struggling. Her eyes had grown listless and weary; her whole frame seemed without energy; it was as though she had expended her last reserves of emotion. And in the end sleep came, impartial sleep that could never have been more welcome; and she lay huddled in my arms, unconscious of my long dreary vigil, her breath rising and falling so faintly that at times I scarcely heard it at all and listened in alarm for the feeble, reassuring beating of her heart. But if her present state was disturbing, she was to give me double cause for concern as the days went by. Her languid and indifferent mood persisted; she showed no more passionate flashes, no more upsurgings of revolt; she had the sad submissiveness of a nun who has taken the last irrevocable vows. And, all the while, a disquieting physical change was coming over her. The color was being drained from her cheeks, which were assuming a waxen hue; the blue veins were standing out on her forehead; her face was growing drawn and thin, with a forlorn, almost ghostly beauty; her hands were seemingly without strength, and hollows began to appear about the palms and wrists. Only her vivid dark eyes remained unchanged, her dark eyes and her auburn ringlets. I would have been less than human had I not fought with all my strength against the cruel transformation. Yet what, after all, could I do? I would spend hours in tending her simplest physical needs, in building fires, in keeping her warmly clothed, in fetching water and preparing food; but it seemed as if she were above all mere physical attentions. She would scarcely put forth an effort to safeguard herself; she would expose herself recklessly or unthinkingly to the cold; and would hardly touch the morsels I made ready for her with hopeful care. To argue with her, to coax her, to entreat her, was but a waste of time; she remained immune to the power of my persuasion and of my love; and I had the unhappy fate of watching her sinking and fading while I was unable to reach out a succoring hand.