It gathered on the white shape of
Otomie seated in a chair hard by the bed, and I saw that her arms hung
down and that her head was resting on the back of the chair. Now I
sprang up and peered into her face. It was white and cold, and I could
feel no breath upon her lips. I seized her hand, that also was cold. I
spoke into her ear, I kissed her brow, but she did not move nor answer.
The light grew quickly, and now I saw all. Otomie was dead, and by her
own act.

This was the manner of her death. She had drunk of a poison of which the
Indians have the secret, a poison that works slowly and without pain,
leaving the mind unclouded to the end. It was while her life was fading
from her that she had spoken to me thus sadly and bitterly. I sat upon
the bed and gazed at her. I did not weep, for my tears were done, and as
I have said, whatever I might feel nothing could break my calm any more.
And as I gazed a great tenderness and sorrow took hold of me, and I
loved Otomie better now that she was dead before me than ever I had done
in her life days, and this is saying much. I remembered her in the glory
of her youth as she was in the court of her royal father, I remembered
the look which she had given me when she stepped to my side upon the
stone of sacrifice, and that other look when she defied Cuitlahua the
emperor, who would have slain me. Once more I seemed to hear her cry of
bitter sorrow as she uncovered the body of the dead babe our firstborn,
and to see her sword in hand standing over the Tlascalan.

Many things came back to me in that sad hour of dawn while I watched
by the corpse of Otomie. There was truth in her words, I had never
forgotten my first love and often I desired to see her face. But it was
not true to say that I had no love for Otomie. I loved her well and I
was faithful in my oath to her, indeed, not until she was dead did I
know how dear she had grown to me. It is true that there was a great
gulf between us which widened with the years, the gulf of blood and
faith, for I knew well that she could not altogether put away her old
beliefs, and it is true that when I saw her leading the death chant, a
great horror took me and for a while I loathed her. But these things I
might have lived to forgive, for they were part of her blood and nature,
moreover, the last and worst of them was not done by her own will, and
when they were set aside there remained much that I could honour and
love in the memory of this