* * * * *

"No; he was bound to die. What else could you expect after the life he
led, poor fellow?"

It was all over. Audrey had dragged herself out of the room, she
scarcely knew how--dragged herself up to Katherine's room and thrown
herself on the bed in a passion of weeping; and Katherine, kneeling for
the second time by Vincent's side, could hear the verdict of science
through the half-open door. Dr. Crashawe was talking to Ted.

Neither Audrey nor Katherine knew how they got through the next three
days. Audrey was afraid to sleep alone, and Katherine had her with her
night and day. Audrey would have gone back to Chelsea but for her fear,
and for a feeling that to leave Devon Street would be a miserable
abandonment of a great situation. All those three days Katherine was
tender to her for Vincent's sake. Happily for her, Audrey disliked going
into his room; she was afraid of the long figure under the straight
white sheet. Katherine could keep her watch with him again alone; she
had no rival there.

Once indeed they stood by his bed together, when Katherine drew back the
sheet from his face, and Audrey laid above his heart a wreath of
eucharis lilies, the symbol of purity.

They stood beside him, the woman who loved him and the woman he had
loved; and they envied him, one the peace, the other the glory of
death.

CHAPTER XXV

It was early one morning about a week after the funeral. Hardy had gone
to his grave, followed last by his friends, and first by his next of
kin, Audrey, and the man who had Lavernac. Audrey was still (as she
always had been) his affectionate cousin. The fact was expressly stated
on the visiting-card attached to the flowers wherewith she had covered
his coffin.

It was in Katherine's bedroom. Katherine was still in bed, waiting for
Audrey to be dressed before her. Audrey was sitting at the
dressing-table brushing her hair, twisting it into the big coil that
shone like copper on the surface, with a dull dark red at the heart of
it. She had on Katherine's white dressing-gown and Katherine's slippers.
She had laughed when she put them on, they were so ridiculously large
for her tiny feet.

Audrey was rebounding after the pressure that had been put on her during
the last ten days. The weight was lifted now. After all, she had not
felt herself an important actor in that drama of death. Death himself
had come and waived her coldly aside. She had been not