re than--himself. He needed me! Me! I would have treasured
every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.'

"I felt like a chill grip on my chest. 'Don't,' I said, in a muffled
voice.

"'Forgive me. I--I--have mourned so long in silence--in silence. . . .
You were with him--to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near
to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to
hear. . . .'

"'To the very end,' I said, shakily. 'I heard his very last words. . . .'
I stopped in a fright.

"'Repeat them,' she said in a heart-broken tone. 'I want--I
want--something--something--to--to live with.'

"I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk
was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper
that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind.
'The horror! The horror!'

"'His last word--to live with,' she murmured. 'Don't you understand I
loved him--I loved him--I loved him!'

"I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.

"'The last word he pronounced was--your name.'

"I heard a light sigh, and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short
by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and
of unspeakable pain. 'I knew it--I was sure!' . . . She knew. She was
sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It
seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that
the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens
do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen, I wonder, if I
had rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn't he said he
wanted only justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have
been too dark--too dark altogether. . . ."

Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a
meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. "We have lost the first of
the ebb," said the Director, suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was
barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading
to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast
sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

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