enterprise," I said.

"No."

He became silent. I sat leaning down to him, and following out my own
thoughts, and presently the religieuse resumed her periodic conflict
with the window fastening. For a time he struggled for breath.... It
seemed such nonsense that he should have to suffer so--poor silly little
man!

"George," he whispered, and his weak little hand came out. "PERHAPS--"

He said no more, but I perceived from the expression of his eyes that he
thought the question had been put.

"Yes, I think so;" I said stoutly.

"Aren't you sure?"

"Oh--practically sure," said I, and I think he tried to squeeze my hand.
And there I sat, holding his hand tight, and trying to think what seeds
of immortality could be found in all his being, what sort of ghost there
was in him to wander out into the bleak immensities. Queer fancies came
to me.... He lay still for a long time, save for a brief struggle or so
for breath and ever and again I wiped his mouth and lips.

I fell into a pit of thought. I did not remark at first the change that
was creeping over his face. He lay back on his pillow, made a
faint zzzing sound that ceased, and presently and quite quietly he
died--greatly comforted by my assurance. I do not know when he died. His
hand relaxed insensibly. Suddenly, with a start, with a shock, I found
that his mouth had fallen open, and that he was dead....

VIII

It was dark night when I left his deathbed and went back to my own inn
down the straggling street of Luzon.

That return to my inn sticks in my memory also as a thing apart, as an
experience apart. Within was a subdued bustle of women, a flitting of
lights, and the doing of petty offices to that queer, exhausted thing
that had once been my active and urgent little uncle. For me those
offices were irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door, and went out
into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street lit by blurred specks
of light in great voids of darkness, and never a soul abroad. That warm
veil of fog produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by the
roadside peered through it as if from another world. The stillness of
the night was marked by an occasional remote baying of dogs; all these
people kept dogs because of the near neighbourhood of the frontier.

Death!

It was one of those rare seasons of relief, when for a little time one
walks a little outside of and beside life. I felt as I sometimes feel
after the end of a play. I