the heavy swell that kept right on without any outward manifestation of its

disturbance, till it should break on the remote shore towards which I

rapidly advanced:--"It is true that I am sick," I said, "and your

society, my Idris is my only medicine; come, and sit beside me."

She made me lie down on the couch, and, drawing a low ottoman near, sat

close to my pillow, pressing my burning hands in her cold palms. She

yielded to my feverish restlessness, and let me talk, and talked to me, on

subjects strange indeed to beings, who thus looked the last, and heard the

last, of what they loved alone in the world. We talked of times gone by; of

the happy period of our early love; of Raymond, Perdita, and Evadne. We

talked of what might arise on this desert earth, if, two or three being

saved, it were slowly re-peopled.--We talked of what was beyond the tomb;

and, man in his human shape being nearly extinct, we felt with certainty of

faith, that other spirits, other minds, other perceptive beings, sightless

to us, must people with thought and love this beauteous and imperishable

universe.

We talked--I know not how long--but, in the morning I awoke from a

painful heavy slumber; the pale cheek of Idris rested on my pillow; the

large orbs of her eyes half raised the lids, and shewed the deep blue

lights beneath; her lips were unclosed, and the slight murmurs they formed

told that, even while asleep, she suffered. "If she were dead," I thought,

"what difference? now that form is the temple of a residing deity; those

eyes are the windows of her soul; all grace, love, and intelligence are

throned on that lovely bosom--were she dead, where would this mind, the

448

The Last Man