From time to time, unconsciously, as her hot grief spent itself, he bent his head, laying his face against hers, while his haggard, perplexed gaze wandered about the room.
In the dimness the snowy bed loomed beside them; pink roses patterned curtain and wall; the tiny night-light threw a roseate glow across her gown.

In the fresh, sweet stillness of the room there was no sound or stir save their uneven breathing.
Very gently he lifted one of her hands and looked at it almost curiously--this small white hand so innocently smooth--as unblemished as a child's--this unsullied little hand that for an instant seemed to be slowly relaxing its grasp on the white simplicity around her--here in this dim, fresh, fragrant world of hers, called, intimately, her room.
And here where night and morning had so long held sacred all that he cared for upon earth--here in the white symbol of the world--her room--he gave himself again to her, without a word, without hope, knowing the end of all was near for them.
But it was she, not he, who must make the sign that ended all.

And, after a long, long time, as she made no sign: "Dearest," he breathed, "I know now that you will never go with me--for your father's sake." That was premature, for she only clung the closer.

He waited cautiously, every instinct alert, his head close to hers.

And at last the hot fragrance of her tears announced the beginning of the end.
"Shiela ?" A stifled sound from his shoulder where her head lay buried.
"Choose now," he said.
No answer.
"Choose." She cowered in his arms.