I got just this to say: whatever you do, for God's sake stay inside the law!" And he slipped through the door and was gone.
But Mac Strann did not raise his head or cast a glance after the marshal.

He sat turning the limp hand of Jerry back and forth in his own, and his eyes wandered vaguely through the window and down to the roofs of the village.
Night thickened perceptibly every moment, yet still while the eastern slope of every roof was jet black, the western slopes were bright, and here and there at the distance the light turned and waned on upper windows.

Sleep was coming over the world, and eternal sleep had come for Jerry Strann.
It did not seem possible.
Some night at sea, when clouds hurtled before the wind across the sky and when the waves leaped up mast-high; when some good ship staggered with the storm, when hundreds were shrieking and yelling in fear or defiance of death; there would have been a death-scene for Jerry Strann.
Or in the battle, when hundreds rush to the attack with one man in front like the edge before the knife--there would have been a death-scene for Jerry Strann.

Or while he rode singing, a bolt of lightning that slew and obliterated at once--such would have been a death for Jerry Strann.
It was not possible that he could die like this, with a smile.

There was something incompleted.