" 'Repeat them,' she murmured in a heart-broken
tone. 'I want -- I want -- something -- something -- to --
to live with.'
"I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you
hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a per-
sistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed
to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising
wind. 'The horror! The horror!'
" 'His last word -- to live with,' she insisted. 'Don't
you understand I loved him -- I loved him -- I loved
him!'
"I pulled myself together and spoke slowly.
"'The last word he pronounced was -- your name.'
"I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still,
stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by
the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable
pain. 'I knew it -- I was sure!' . . . She knew. She was
sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face
in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would
collapse before I could escape, that the heavens
would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The
heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have
fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justice
which was his due? Hadn't he said he wanted only
justice? But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would
have been too dark -- too dark altogether...."
Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent,
in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved
for a time. "We have lost the first of the ebb," said
the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing
was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tran-
quil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the
earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky -- seemed
to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
[End.]