“I’m not going to leave you, it’s you—it’s you that are—it’s you that are leaving me. And may God send somebody to meet and care for you on the long lonely road, oh, my beloved, my blessed, my baby, my beautiful!” She seemed to understand. Whether she thought with fear of the hell he was damning himself to, or dreaded after all to let go of life, the one thing certain, however evil, she shook her head in a panic of terror, and fluttered, “No, No! No!” He knew that his deed must be done swiftly. At once, or never. So he reached above her and took into his hands all the treasure of her hair where he had spread and smoothed it across her pillow. He drew it down like a heap of carded silk and swept it across her face, smothering her with it. She struggled and writhed, writhed to escape from under it. She seized his hands and tugged at them, dug her nails into them. Her breast beat up and down for breath; her heart must have plunged like a trapped bird. But he gathered the hair more and more thickly across her mouth. He bent down once and kissed her hot, panting lips. Her mouth was like a rose in a tangled skein of floss. Then he closed a double handful of her hair over her face and held it fast. It was cruel hard that after so long a life of devotion her last look at him should be one of horror; her farewell caresses given with her nails. But love asked this proof. His chief concern was whether his strength would abide the end. Her hands fought at his hands more and more feebly. It was easier to resist their battle than their surrender. When her hands loosened, that was the hardest time. He imagined the prayers she was screaming dumbly at him and at God. But his love prevailed over his humanity, and he watched over her gaunt white bosom as the storm subsided from tempest to slumber, to sleep. He held her, drowned in her own hair, long after the ultimate pallor had snowed her flesh; long, long after her hands had fallen limp and wan, their empty palms upward like an unpitied beggar’s. When at last he was sure that she would never groan under another of this earth’s fardels, he lifted away her wanton tresses, as if he raised her veil. The first sight of her soulless face broke him like a thunderbolt. Tears came gushing from him in shattered rain. He drew her hands prayer-wise across her bosom, and fell across her body, loving it, clutching at it. He could not cling, but he sank by the bed and spilled his limbs along the floor in a brief death. As if his soul had run after hers to make sure that it got home safe. CHAPTER LI All this while Keith had stood watching, as motionless as a statue, and with as little will.