"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had rallied
for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept during the
early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there were symptoms of
fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The words that escaped her
in this condition appear to have related mainly to an absent person whom
she spoke of by the name of 'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to
see 'George' again before she died.

"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait in the
locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent her nurse
out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting partly to her own
admirable courage and strength of mind, and partly to the confidence
which I knew she placed in me as an old friend and adviser, I adverted
to the words which had fallen from her in the feverish state. And then I
said, 'You know that any secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me,
do you expect to receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'?

"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was over
her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was producing
on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial movement, of her
hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk coverlet of the bed.

"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to
hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing became
oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She told me nothing;
she only put a question:

"'Is he here?' she asked.

"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.'

"'Is there a letter?'

"I said 'No.'

"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of her
fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor! Whatever it is,
give it to me, before I die.'

"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into her hand.

"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at first.
She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.' I obeyed
her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil; and then (as I
suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low cry--not of sorrow or
pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst from her. I heard her kiss
the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my profession to piteous sights and
sounds, I never remember so completely losing my self-control as I lost
it at that moment. I was obliged to turn away to the window.