I felt like a chill grip on my chest. "Don't," I said, in a muffled voice.

     "Forgive me. I -- I have mourned so long in silence -- in silence... You were with him -- to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear..."

     "To the very end," I said, shakily. "I heard his very last words..." I stopped in a fright.

     "Repeat them," she murmured in a heart-broken tone. "I want -- I want -- something -- something -- to -- to live with."

     I was on the point of crying at her, "Don't you hear them?" The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. "The horror! The horror!"

     "His last word -- to live with," she insisted. "Don't you understand I loved him -- I loved him -- I loved him!"

     I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.

     "The last word he pronounced was -- your name."