"At least he's not in pain any more," said Waddington.
She leaned once more over her husband.
Those ghastly eyes of his still stared vacantly in front of him.
She could not tell if he saw with them. She did not know whether he had heard what was said.
She put her lips close to his ears.
"Walter, isn't there something we can do?"
She thought that there must be some drug they could give him which would stay the dreadful ebbing of his life.
Now that her eyes were more accustomed to the dimness, she saw with horror that his face had fallen.
She would hardly have recognized him.
It was unthinkable that in a few short hours he should look like another man; he hardly looked like a man at all; he looked like death.
She thought that he was making an effort to speak.
She put her ear close.
"Don't fuss.
I've had a rough passage, but I'm all right now."
Kitty waited for a moment, but he was silent.
His immobility rent her heart with anguish; it was terrifying that he should lie so still. He seemed prepared already for the stillness of the grave.
Someone, the surgeon or a dresser, came forward and with a gesture motioned her aside; he leaned over the dying man and with a dirty rag wet his lips.
Kitty stood up once more and turned to Waddington despairingly.
"Is there no hope at all?" she whispered.
He shook his head.
"How much longer can he live?"
"No one can tell.
An hour perhaps."
Kitty looked round the bare chamber and her eyes rested for an instant on the substantial form of Colonel Y #252;.
"Can I be left alone with him for a little while?" she asked. "Only for a minute."
"Certainly, if you wish it."
Waddington stepped over to the Colonel and spoke to him.
The Colonel gave a little bow and then in a low tone an order.
"We shall wait on the steps," said Waddington as they trooped out. "You have only to call."
Now that the incredible had overwhelmed her consciousness, like a drug coursing through her veins, and she realized that Walter was going to die she had but one thought, and that was to make his end easier for him by dragging from his soul the rancour which poisoned it.
If he could die at peace with her it seemed to her that he would die at peace with himself.
She thought now not of herself at all but only of him.
"Walter, I beseech you to forgive me," she said, leaning over him.
For fear that he could not bear the pressure she took care not to touch him. "I'm so desperately sorry for the wrong I did you.
I so bitterly regret it."
He said nothing.
He did not seem to hear.
She was obliged to insist.
It seemed to her strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred.
"Darling."
A shadow passed over his wan and sunken face.
It was less than a movement, and yet it gave all the effect of a terrifying convulsion.
She had never used that word to him before.
Perhaps in his dying brain there passed the thought, confused and difficultly grasped, that he had only heard her use it, a commonplace of her vocabulary, to dogs and babies and motor-cars.
Then something horrible occurred.
She clenched her hands, trying with all her might to control herself, for she saw two tears run slowly down his wasted cheeks.
"Oh, my precious, my dear, if you ever loved me - I know you loved me and I was hateful - I beg you to forgive me.
I've no chance now to show my repentance.
Have mercy on me.
I beseech you to forgive."