oin me. That is all.
I know it. God knows. He will adjust it somehow."

Jean did not answer. She but clasped his hand and looked into his
face. I feared she would die of a bursting heart. From that time till
the end she never left his bedside.

Murderous Death has certain kindnesses in his killings. Just before
the end is peace. The struggles of this strong man became something
fearful as the lungs congested, and the most powerful of anti-pyretics
ceased to have effect, and then came the peace which follows nature's
virtual surrender, the armistice of the moment. What trick of
reversion to first impressions comes, and what causes it, none have yet
explained, but long before the time of Falstaff men, dying, had babbled
o' green fields. Grant Harlson, now, was surely dying. The physicians
had warned us all, and we were all about his bedside. As for me, thank
God, the tears could come as they did to the children. But there were
none upon the cheeks of Jean. Her sweet face was as if of stone;
whiter than that of the man in the bed.

The convulsions had ceased, but his mind was wandering and his speech
was rambling. It was easy to tell of what he was thinking. He was a
little boy in the woodland home with his mother again, and was telling
her delightedly of what he had seen and found, and of the yellow
mandrake apples he had stored in a hollow log. She should help him eat
them. And then the scene would shift, and he was older, and we were
together in the fields. He called to me excitedly to take the dog to
the other side of the brush-heap, for the woodchuck was slipping
through that way! There was the old merry ring in his voice, and I
knew where he was and how there came to him, in fancy, the sweet
perfumes of the fields, and how his eyes, which were opened wide but
saw us not, were blessed with all the greenness and the glory of the
summer of long ago. Then his manner changed, and the word "Jean" came
softly to his lips, and again I knew they were camping out together,
and he was teaching to his wife the pleasant mysteries of the forest,
and all woodcraft. There was love in his tones and in his features.
The breast of the woman holding his hand heaved, and the pallor on her
face grew more.

There was another struggle for breath, then a desperate one, and with
its end came consciousness. Grant smiled and spoke faintly:

"It must he pretty near the end. I am very tired. Jean, darling, get
close