There came to her ears the sound of a dog-churn in the yard outside, and
the dull roll and beat seemed to keep time to the aching pulses in her
head, in all her body. One thought kept going through her brain: there
was, as she had felt, trouble coming for Valmond. She had the conviction,
too, that it was very near. Her one definite idea was, that she should be
able to go to him when that trouble came; that she should not fail him at
his great need. Yet these pains in her body, this alternate exaltation
and depression, this pitiful weakness! She must conquer it. She
remembered the hours spent at his bedside; the moments when he was all
hers--by virtue of his danger and her own unwavering care of him. She
recalled the dark moment when Death, intrusive, imminent, lurked at the
tent door, and in its shadow she emptied out her soul in that one kiss of
fealty and farewell.
That kiss--there came to her again, suddenly, Madame Degardy's cry of
warning: "Don't get his breath--it's death, idiot!"
That was it: the black fever was in her veins! That one kiss had sealed
her own doom. She knew it now.
He had given her life by giving her love.
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