The knowledge of the imminence of death was like a drug.

Darkly, without thinking at all, she knew that she was near to death.

She had travelled all her life along the line of fulfilment, and it was nearly concluded.

She knew all she had to know, she had experienced all she had to experience, she was fulfilled in a kind of bitter ripeness, there remained only to fall from the tree into death.

And one must fulfil one's development to the end, must carry the adventure to its conclusion.