She was fast asleep.

Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully
on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn
breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her
sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband,
had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and
she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested
long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must
have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange,
friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to
himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was
no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.

Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the
chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string
dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen
down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of
emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's
supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the
merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the
walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon
be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had
caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing
Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same
drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds
would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying
and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast
about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find
only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.

The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself
cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by
one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other
world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally
with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her
heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told
her that he did not wish to live.

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that
himself towards any woman, b