ere were few of her old companions left. There were
fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
passing day, had been hostess and friend.

The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.

The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.

"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
colored, still, with pride and gladness.

A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"

The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
Dying, this woman _would_ not die--_could_ not die--until the end for
which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
holding Death at bay.

It was magnificent, and the