Page:The Great Secret.djvu/58

42 Thus the first hour passed, while the captain sat steadily at the table, where the weapons were placed, and waited.

Adela Austin or Fernandez expressed herself as tired, and therefore stretched herself out on the couch, while Philip wrapped her well up about the limbs, for although the night was a warm one, a sudden exclusiveness made him cover her feet.

She now permitted him to do as he pleased with her. He was her last friend, both waiting by the brink of the dark river, both waiting the shock which would sever the links that the world had forged about them. She knew that he had been a married man—men, as well as women, carry that sign about them. She did not know the story of his misery as he did hers; she would learn it when they had crossed over the river. He was not the sort of man to attract women who indulged in romantic dreams. He was old and passé; but sorrow and disappointment had rendered her short-sighted to the physical, and she felt contented that he cared enough for her company not to regret dying with her. It made death pleasanter to contemplate with him beside her. It was not so lonely as going out alone, or with a crowd of frivolous and stranger spirits.

"Do you wish to sleep, Adela?" asked Philip, as he wrapped her round.

"No, Philip, we shall have time enough for that presently. Hold my hand, if you like to do so; I like it so."

He half sat, half lay on the ground at her side, with his head on the cushions upon which she reclined, and still held her hand, no one heeding them.

She was thinking,—"I wonder where spirits go to after they are liberated from the body. Those that