“Yes,” he said. “I’ll stay.
But make it fast.”
She prayed again. She spoke quietly, with that abjectness of pride. When it was necessary to use the symbolwords which he had taught her, she used them, spoke them forthright and without hesitation, talking to God as if He were a man in the room with two other men.
She spoke of herself and of him as of two other people, her voice still, monotonous, sexless.
Then she ceased.
She rose quietly.
They stood in the twilight, facing one another.
This time she did not even ask the question; he did not even need to reply.
After a time she said quietly:
“Then there’s just one other thing to do.”
“There’s just one other thing to do,” he said.
‘So now it’s all done, all finished,’ he thought quietly, sitting in the dense shadow of the shrubbery, hearing the last stroke of the far clock cease and die away.
It was a spot where he had overtaken her, found her on one of the wild nights two years ago.
But that was in another time, another life.
Now it was still, quiet, the fecund earth now coolly suspirant.
The dark was filled with the voices, myriad, out of all time that he had known, as though all the past was a flat pattern.
And going on: tomorrow night, all the tomorrows, to be a part of the flat pattern, going on.
He thought of that with quiet astonishment: going on, myriad, familiar, since all that had ever been was the same as all that was to be, since tomorrow to-be and had-been would be the same.
Then it was time.
He rose.
He moved from the shadow and went around the house and entered the kitchen. The house was dark.
He had not been to the cabin since early morning and he did not know if she had left a note for him or not, expected him or not.
Yet he did not try for silence.
It was as if he were not thinking of sleep, of whether she would be asleep or not.
He mounted the stairs steadily and entered the bedroom.
Almost at once she spoke from the bed.
“Light the lamp,” she said.
“It won’t need any light,” he said.
“Light the lamp.”
“No,” he said. He stood over the bed.
He held the razor in his hand.
But it was not open yet. But she did not speak again and then his body seemed to walk away from him.
It went to the table and his hands laid the razor on the table and found the lamp and struck the match She was sitting up in the bed, her back against the headboard.
Over her nightdress she wore a shawl drawn down across her breast.
Her arms were folded upon the shawl, her hands hidden from sight.
He stood at the table.
They looked at one another.
“Will you kneel with me?” she said. “I don’t ask it.”
“No,” he said.
“I don’t ask it.
It’s not I who ask it.
Kneel with me.”
“No.”
They looked at one another.
“Joe,” she said, “for the last time.
I don’t ask it.
Remember that.
Kneel with me.”
“No,” he said.
Then he saw her arms unfold and her right hand come forth from beneath the shawl.—It held an old style, single action, cap-and-ball revolver almost as long and heavier than a small rifle.