f dawn the first pale shaft of the sun struck
across a bed upon which lay the huddled and distorted corpse of a man.
His head was sunk down in the pillows. His eyes, that could not see,
stared towards the rising light. And from the open window of the chamber
of death a woman in a white wrapper leaned out, watching eagerly with
wide blue eyes the birds as they darted to and fro, rested on the
climbing creepers, or circled above the gorge through which the river
ran. Her set lips smiled. She looked like one calm, easy, and at peace.
Presently an unwary sparrow perched on the trellis beneath the window
just within her reach. Her white hand darted down softly, closed on the
bird. She vanished from the window.

Can the dead hear? Did he catch the sound of her faint, continuous
purring as she crouched with her prey upon the floor?

End of Project Gutenberg's The Return Of The Soul, by Robert S. Hichens

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