What could the thing
that was to happen to him be, after all, but just this thing that
had began to happen? Her dying, her death, his consequent
solitude--that was what he had figured as the Beast in the Jungle,
that was what had been in the lap of the gods. He had had her word
for it as he left her--what else on earth could she have meant? It
wasn't a thing of a monstrous order; not a fate rare and
distinguished; not a stroke of fortune that overwhelmed and
immortalised; it had only the stamp of the common doom. But poor
Marcher at this hour judged the common doom sufficient. It would
serve his turn, and even as the consummation of infinite waiting he
would bend his pride to accept it. He sat down on a bench in the
twilight. He hadn't been a fool. Something had BEEN, as she had
said, to come. Before he rose indeed it had quite struck him that
the final fact really matched with the long avenue through which he
had had to reach it. As sharing his suspense and as giving herself
all, giving her life, to bring it to an end, she had come with him
every step of the way.
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