following morning the improvement was continued, but in the evening she
was taken suddenly worse, and we lifted her into bed and telegraphed for
the doctor. But now the end had come; her strength completely failed, and
she felt that death was upon her; but selfless to the last, her only fear
was for me. "I am leaving you alone," she would sigh from time to time,
and truly I felt, with an anguish I dared not realise, that when she died
I should indeed be alone on earth.

For two days longer she was with me, and, miser with my last few hours, I
never left her side for five minutes. At last on the 10th of May the
weakness passed into delirium, but even then the faithful eyes followed
me about the room, until at length they closed for ever, and as the
sun sank low in the heavens, the breath came slower and slower, till the
silence of death came down upon us and she was gone.

All that followed was like a dream. I would have none touch my dead save
myself and her favorite sister, who was with us at the last; she wept
over her, but I could not, not even when they hid her beneath the
coffin-lid, nor all that weary way to Kensal Green, whither we took her
to lay her with her husband and her baby-son. I could not believe that
our day-dream was dead and buried, and the home destroyed ere it was
fairly made. My "house was left unto" me "desolate", and the rooms filled
with sunshine, but unlighted by her presence, seemed to reiterate to me:
"You are all alone ".



XI.