"This is dreadful!"
"As gentle as it can be," he answered.
"Don't talk of gentleness--it is horrible, inexorable! To see him lying
there, a grey shadow, when he used to be so splendidly living! It was
that magnificent vitality of his which gave him his power. When he
liked he could dominate. I am pagan, pagan, if you will. Death the
friend? Not it. Death is the enemy, the hateful enemy, and we all
tremble before him, like cowards!"
She flung back her head, and her red eyes looked defiantly at Wareham.
He said--
"I am not a priest."
"No, but you are a man. Say what you feel."
"Enemy, then, yes. Conqueror, no."
"Oh!" She flung out her hands impatiently.
"You are like the rest. What do you _know_?"
"You tell me that is the end." He pointed to the door. "I see in it a
beginning. `The power of an endless life.' If hope were a phantom, it
would fade before the face of death. Instead, it strengthens."
A great yearning looked at him from her soul through her sad eyes. He
had never before seen such a look. She turned away.