I think she did not speak again. Toward morning the change came, and
soon after sunrise, with her old aunt kneeling by her side, she passed
away.
All was arranged as she had wished. Her manuscripts, covered with
violets, formed her pillow. No one followed her to the grave save her
aunt and myself; I thought she would prefer it so. Her name was not
"Crief," after all, but "Moncrief;" I saw it written out by Aunt Martha
for the coffin-plate, as follows: "Aaronna Moncrief, aged forty-three
years, two months, and eight days."
I never knew more of her history than is written here. If there was
more that I might have learned, it remained unlearned, for I did not
ask.
And the drama? I keep it here in this locked case. I could have had it
published at my own expense; but I think that now she knows its faults
herself, perhaps, and would not like it.
I keep it; and, once in a while, I read it over--not as a _memento
mori_ exactly, but rather as a memento of my own good fortune, for
which I should continually give thanks. The want of one grain made all
her work void, and that one grain was given to me. She, with the
greater power, failed--I, with the less, succeeded. But no praise is
due to me for that. When I die "Armor" is to be destroyed unread: not
even Isabel is to see it. For women will misunderstand each other; and,
dear and precious to me as my sweet wife is, I could not bear that she
or any one should cast so much as a thought of scorn upon the memory of
the writer, upon my poor dead, "unavailable," unaccepted "Miss Grief."