I love you now and for always. I am
glad to have lived because you kissed me on the stone of sacrifice, and
afterwards I bore you sons. They are yours and not mine; it seems to me
now that I only cared for them because they were yours, and they
loved you and not me. Take them--take their spirits as you have taken
everything. You swore that death alone should sever us, and you have
kept your oath in the letter and in the thought. But now I go to the
Houses of the Sun to seek my own people, and to you, Teule, with whom
I have lived many years and seen much sorrow, but whom I will no longer
call husband, since you forbade me so to do, I say, make no mock of
me to the Lily maid. Speak of me to her as little as you may--be happy
and--farewell!'
Now as she spoke ever more faintly, and I listened bewildered, the light
of dawn grew slowly in the chamber. It gathered on the white shape of
Otomie seated in a chair hard by the bed, and I saw that her arms hung
down and that her head was resting on the back of the chair. Now I
sprang up and peered into her face. It was white and cold, and I could
feel no breath upon her lips. I seized her hand, that also was cold. I
spoke into her ear, I kissed her brow, but she did not move nor answer.
The light grew quickly, and now I saw all. Otomie was dead, and by her
own act.
This was the manner of her death.
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