I eased his head and gave him more brandy.
And then he found strength to try to push me away. "Go! Go! The
woman!" I made the words out of the writhing of his lips.
I leaned over him. "Where? Where is she? Where?"
He tried many times before he made a sound that I could catch, and his
strength ebbed. I tried more brandy, but he was past reviving. I
strained to hear, till my agony matched his. I thought I caught a
word. "Woods!" I cried. "Is she in the woods?"
"Yes." He suddenly spoke clearly. "Go." And he fell back in my arms.
I thought that he died with that word, but I held him a moment longer
to make sure. It did not matter now that I hated him. As to what he
had brought on me,--I could not visit my despair on him for that. As
well rage at the forces that made him. Life had given him a little
soul in a compelling body. The world believed the body, and expected
of the man what he could not reach. I looked at his dead face and
trembled before the mystery of inheritance.
But he was not dead. He opened his eyes to mine, quivered, and spoke,
and his voice was clear.
"I would have followed her into the woods but they bound me. I was not
a coward that time.
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