Brides have seldom been happier than Jenny as she looked on the wife's ring that hung loose on her thin finger, and brides have often been sadder.
Death was coming very near now, so near that Jenny began to forget that she was going to die.

She forgot too that she was married to Theophil, and would sometimes babble her heart-breaking fancies of the little home that was so near now, till sometimes Theophil had to hurry away with his unbearable grief to some other room.
And Jenny's once rosy apple of a face made one's heart ache to look on now.

It made one frightened, too: it was so dark and witchlike, so uncanny, almost wicked, so thin and full of inky shadows.

She would sit up in her bed a wizened little goblin, and laugh a queer, dry, knowing laugh to herself,--a laugh like the scraping of reeds in a solitary place.

A strange black weariness seemed to be crushing down her brows, like the "unwilling sleep" of a strong narcotic.